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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap Copyright No 

Shelf_.._L\A/37 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



ft pot op om, 



on 



The Anointed Life as Applied to Prayer, the 

JVLental Faculties, tl?e Affections 

and Christian Service. 

BY 

/ 

GEORGE D. WATSON. 



Author of "White Robes," ''Holiness Manual," 
"Coals of Fire," "Love Abounding," Soul Food," 
"Pure Gold," "Types of the Holy Spirit," "Christ 
Returneth," "Steps to the Throne," Etc. 



Copyright by the Author* 
J900. 



GEO. BURGUM, Publisher, 

PITTSBURG, PA. 
1 900. 

V- 



THE LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two Copies Received 

MAR, 2 1901 

Copyright entry 

CLASS 4/XXc. No. 

COPY B. 






TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Page. 

A Pot of Oil 1-18 

First Class Love 18-25 

Signs of Progress 26-32 

A Spiritual Mind 33-40 

A. Spiritual Will : 40-46 

Names of the Twelve Patriarchs 46-59 

A. Censorious Spirit 59-68 

A. Gentle Spirit 68-75 

Abrahamic Religion 76-88 

Vessels of Prayer 88-93 

Dryness in Prayer 94~99 

The Trinity of Prayer 99-106 

Joseph a Type of Jesus, (The Restoration of Israel) 106-128 

Faber on Judging Others 128-136 

True and False Fire 136-142 

Tried by the Lord 1 42-147 

Elements of Fanaticism 147-156 



A POT OF OIL. 

The events recorded in the Bible were cast into 
a mould of divine providence for the purpose of reveal- 
ing special truths to all generations. In the days 
before iron steamships, ship-builders would search the 
great forests and select those trees best adapted for 
making staunch vessels for transporting merchandise 
or people across the seas. In like manner, when the 
Holy Spirit was constructing the Bible, he searched 
out from human history those persons, and places, and 
events, and things that were most perfectly fitted for 
the forming of a great ship of divine instruction, and 
the carrying of the full cargo of truth over the seas of 
time, for the enlightenment and feeding of the souls of 
men. No Scripture was written merely for the sake of 
the people then living, or as a cold, secular history. 
One of these items of events which is loaded with 
precious truth, is that recorded in 2 Kings, chapter 4, 
where in answer to the prayer of Elisha the Lord mul- 
tiplied the oil for the widow, to deliver her from debt 
and provide her substance to live on. In reading the 
account there given we notice seven points that can 
be made to apply to ourselves. 



2 A POT OF OIL. 

i . The servant of the Lord in debt. To be in debt 
is to be in bondage, and was never God's purpose, as 
applied either to money or to the spirit of obedience. 
Debt is the rod of Satan with which he scourges the 
children of men. Debt, dirt and the devil all belong 
together. The poor widow mentioned in this passage 
had been left by her husband with an old debt against 
the family, and although her husband was a preacher, 
"one of the sons of the prophets," yet in his poverty 
had gone in debt to a rich, hard-hearted neighbor, 
and perhaps it had been increased by usury ; and now 
a crisis was reached, which wrung a pitiful cry from 
the heart of the widow and mother. In those days 
when the Holy Ghost had not been given as the uni- 
versal Comforter, the prophet Klisha stood in many 
instances to fill the office of the Holy Spirit to God's 
people, and so this woman cried to Elisha as he was 
the special mouth-piece of God's will to the people. 
Here is a picture of multitudes of the IyOrd's people 
to-day ; they are servants of God, but by being in debt 
they are hampered financially, and spiritually, for debt 
wears heavily on the mind of an honest person who 
intends to pay it. It saddens the heart, destroys 
cheerfulness, weakens courage, brings a certain sense 
of degradation, and, as Scripture says, ''the borrower 
is servant to the lender." George Muller tells us 
"that if we are in debt we should humbly repent of it 



A POT OF Oil*. 3 

the same as with other sins, and promise the Lord that 
we will not go in debt again, and keep that Scripture 
commanding us to "owe no man anything but to love 
one another." This is the way to please God. But 
the debt of this poor widow has a broader and spiritu- 
al application. There are many who are the servants 
of God who are yet in legal bondage, and are not yet 
paying the debt of perfect love to God which we owe 
to him. The first of all laws is, "We shall love the 
Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, 
and all our strength." This is the return which will 
satisfy the Lord for his infinite goodness to us ; it does 
not pay him for his infinite goodness, but it is what 
he asks. Now as long as a christian fails of loving 
God with all his heart, though he may serve God in a 
measure, he is constantly running in debt to his heav- 
enly Father, not a debt of sentiment, but really and 
scripturally, he is, according to God's law 7 , failing to 
pay what the boundless love of God has required. 

2. The dema,7id of the creditor. She said, "The 
creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be 
bondmen." Perhaps he was a hard-hearted, exacting 
creditor, but he had the civil law on his side, which 
became the very instrument of torture to this mother's 
heart, for how could she bear to have her two little 
sons torn from her side and bound out for service un- 
til they should reach their maturity ? Have our 



4 A POT OF OIL. 

hearts not ached at seeing similiar sufferings on many 
a poor family resulting from an old debt. Let all who 
read this avoid going in debt as we would avoid a 
deadly disease. But this circumstance has an applica- 
tion to the demands of divine law upon our souls. 
This creditor is a good type of the law of God which 
demands the full payment of perfect love. Let us re- 
member that the law in its letter knows no mercy or 
deviation, and, although as Paul says, "It is holy, 
just and good, and has an office to fill of exact right- 
eousness, and is essential in God's economy, yet it is 
not the minister of grace; that is reserved for the per- 
sonal Christ himself, for the law came by Moses, but 
grace came by Jesus Christ." When a servant of God 
fails to pay the debt of loving God with all his heart, 
the law is not thereby repealed, and will soon manifest 
its exacting nature by putting the spiritual debtor into 
legal bondage. God's law is not a myth, nor a chang- 
able option, but a real, divine spiritual force, and is 
applied to the soul by the judicial office of the Holy 
Spirit, just as really as grace is applied by the Com- 
forter office of the Holy Spirit. Let us never forget, 
as a great many persons have done, that the Holy 
Ghost administers the law of Mt. Sinai to the consci- 
ence, just a literally as he administers the atonement 
to the heart of the obedient believer. This explains 
that vast world of religious life and experience known 



A POT OF OIL. 5 

as "legal bondage." A soul in the early joys of justi- 
fication does not feel any bondage of service, but if it 
fails to go on to the perfection of love, the law will 
soon put in its claim for perfect love, and if the sub- 
ject still fails to yield it, the law will seize on that 
soul and make a "bondman" out of it, just as the 
creditor in this passage was going to do with the 
widow's sons. When this bondage is enacted in a 
christian, his whole life becomes one of restraint and 
constraint, and like the Jews in the wilderness, who 
were not permitted to go back to Egypt on the one 
hand, and not able to go up into Canaan on the other, 
but constantly .subjected to marchings and going about, 
making little progress, and their very religion grows 
tiresome, until they long for death more than they 
thirst for the fullness and sweetness of the living God. 
Such a soul feels it must serve the I,ord, and yet there 
is a bondage in its prayers ; in its spiritual reading ; 
in its benevolence ; in giving its tenth of the income 
to the Lord ; in religious testimony or christian work 
of any kind. The creditor of the law has really seized 
upon the inner, delicate fountains of the soul, and its 
grasp will never be relinquished, until such a one 
yields himself up to an unlimited consecration, and 
the loving of God just as the law requires. Many 
thousands of sincere religious people are in this 
condition. 



6 A POT OF Oily. 

3. Only a Pot of Oil. When Elisha asked her if 
she had any resources whatever of which to pay the 
debt, she said, "Thine handmaid hath not anything 
in the house, save a pot of oil." Little did she dream 
that her little pot of oil could be attached to divine 
power and turned into a fountain of wealth. Little 
did Moses dream that the shepherd's rod in his hand 
could be made the vehicle of scourging Egypt and 
emancipating his people. Little did Dorcas imagine 
that her sewing needle would be the instrument of 
showing forth her saintly charity to all generations. 
How the dealings of God forever soar above all the 
conjectures of men, and his marvelous providence 
walks through the heavens, and uses the seeming 
trifflng things of life as stepping stones. Here we 
have an insight into God's government, how he is 
constantly joining the super-natural upon the natural, 
taking the little things and weak things of the crea- 
ture, and welding them to omnipotence and grace. 
Nothing is more wonderful than how God unites 
himself to created beings and things. He did not 
ignore the little pot of oil, but made it the nucleus of 
his exhaustless supply, God honors things that men 
despise, because he is God, and cannot despise any- 
thing in the universe except sin, and a pot of oil, or 
a sewing needle, will be taken into his service just the 
same as a planet or a solar system. God does not 



A POT OF Olt. 7 

bless nothing. There must be .something as the basis 
of his blessing. This pot of oil, like the few loaves 
and fishes, would not of itself supply the demand, but 
it was a fraction of a supply, and instead of casting it 
aside, as man would do, the Infinite Creator saw it 
was large enough to take hold of and be utilized in 
producing an abundance. This is the key to God's 
operations, both in nature and in grace. This pot of 
oil is the counterpart of something in every human 
being, which if utterly yielded to God's disposal, will 
be made the channel of endless wealth and blessing. 
It matters not how poor and fallen and helpless and 
utterly undone any poor creature may be, there is 
always some gift in one's life, or being, some capacity 
of heart, or mind, or will, or voice, or hand, or per- 
sonal magnetism, some unknown capacity of faith, or 
labor, which if in humility and obedience is put into 
the hands of God, he will gladly turn it into a river of 
blessing beyond all that the poor, helpless soul 
could ask or think. God is able and willing to pull 
us through the greatest extremities, if there be only 
something in us that he can take hold of which will 
bear the strain of the divine pull. There are always 
great numbers of professed christians who seem to 
desire that the Lord should use them, and they look 
with surprise and amazement at the work some other 
christians do, and the extent that the Lord uses them, 



8 A POf OF OIL. 

and heave a sigh that they cannot be of more service. 
They are always waiting for greater gifts, larger fields, 
finer facilities, more definite leading, more flattering 
opportunities, never dreaming that at this very hour 
there is some little thing within their reach, some 
humble gift, some special adaptation in their make 
up, some little pot of oil hid away of which they take 
no account, which if utterly yielded in prayer to the 
Lord, God would gladly make it the instrument of their 
everlasting fortune. Humble souls all around them, 
with less money, less talent, less social position, less 
physical or mental endowments, are throwing them 
into eclipse, and laying up treasures in heaven beyond 
all calculation. The fact is, too many gifts are often 
a hindrance, by hindering the spirit of utter self-despair 
and entire dependence on God alone. It is not the 
measure of what we have that tells the most, but the 
measure in which our littleness is given up to the 
Lord, and led out into his purposes, and into the 
power of the Holy Spirit. The Lord shows his glory 
by accomplishing amazing results with little things, 
and on the other hand Satan shows his wretched 
destructiveness b> taking the greatest and reducing 
them to ruin. The Lord will take a poor hunch-back 
in utter poverty, without education, from a drunkard's 
home, as in the case of Dorothea Trudel, and work 
out through her a career of prayer and faith which 



A POT OF OIL. 9 

will tell in eternity infinitely beyond what Satan eonld 
do with a million gifted Bonaparte or Byron, because 
the little hunch-back girl had a pot of oil in the shape 
of humble prayer which was taken hold upon by the 
Holy Spirit." 

4. Borrow empty vessels. As soon as Elisha found 
something in the poor widow's possession which could 
be utilized for her relief, the next thing was to pro- 
vide room for the L,ord to work his miracle. God 
works very fast and very lavishly when the time has 
come and all the conditions are met. This command 
of the prophet was a tax upon the widow's faith, for 
the step was especially the step of faith, as she had 
never seen or heard of a pot of oil being multiplied. 
The command to borrow abundantly empty vessels, 
before ever seeing the means of filling them, required 
of her to act just as if she had Elisha's faith, and to 
trust and obey on a naked promise without feeling 
and before seeing any miracle. In like manner, when 
the Lord can find something in us that he can utilize, 
and it is utterly yielded to his will, the next step is 
for us to bring empty vessels, to make room for the 
inflow of the abundance of life and light. We also 
must pass this line of simple faith without feeling, or 
any kind of evidence except the inspired promise of 
God, and go out on lines of obedience, like Abraham, 
not knowing whither God may lead. 



io a fot of oii,. 

In many ways this same process has to be gone 
through, and whether it be in justification, or sancti- 
fication, or trusting for our health, or for open doors 
of service, or for financial relief, or for blessing upon 
others ; in various ways we are to yield the pot of oil 
and go forth making room for great things. We 
must bring a mind which has been emptied of old 
prejudices, old traditional theology, human philoso- 
phy and false science, a mind so utterly humble 
and empty that the L,ord can reveal to it great, 
bright worlds of truth and beauty, and such floods of 
spiritual understanding as we have never dreamed of. 
We must bring hearts that are emptied of multiplied 
earthly attachments and mere pious sentimentalism, 
old friendships, old day dreams, many a fond hope, 
many a tormenting fear, many an affection that has 
seemed so churchly and religious; emptied of anxiety 
and foreboding, and long cherished feelings, that the 
Holy Spirit may flood the love nature with great, 
strong, heavily attachments and divinely inspired loves 
which will never pass away. We must bring empty 
hands that have renounced our own works, and all 
planning and wire-pulling for self; hands that hold on 
to no toys, to no treasure; hands that bring no human 
stipulation or treatise of compromise, but so empty 
that they can grasp firmly and constantly the sword of 
the Spirit, the cross, and the crown, or the plow 



A POT OF OIL. II 

handles that God may put into them. God fills our 
nature and fills our lives just in proportion as they are 
emptied for him. A great many suppose that we are 
to be emptied only of that which is recognized as sin, 
but there are many things which could not be classifi- 
ed as sin, even in the Scripture sense, which are a 
positive hindrance to the great ocean inflow of God's 
power and knowledge into us. 

Thousands of christians allow their very religion to 
get between them and God, and this is true of the 
Protestant as well as the Papist. The Holy Spirit 
would love to fill professed christians with pure love, 
with light on divine healing, and with bright floods of 
scriptural knowledge concerning the coming of Jesus 
and his reign on the earth, and the understanding of 
Scripture on kindred themes, but their very church 
creeds, their old sermons, their stereotyped prayers, 
their devotion to what they think is good and holy, 
blinds their eyes, hardens their hearts, and fills them 
so full that the mighty ocean of God's light and love 
goes rolling past them but unable to enter. Often- 
times one's prosperity, or friends, or religious work, 
prevents him from making room for the inflow of di- 
vine things. 

Oh ! it is the miserable goody good things that in so 
many ways hinder God from filling us with his choic- 
est and fullest blessings. A good thing may become 



12 A POT OF Olt. 

bad if it prevents us from getting the best. And even 
sanctified souls may be so filled in their reason with 
rigid theories, or attachments to holiness associations, 
and pious friends, and traditional theology, as to see 
nothing in the marvelous Scriptures on the return of 
Jesus, and the reign of the saints over the nations, and 
allow themselves to speak foolishly and ignorantly of 
Jesus as a healer of disease. We understand the 
Scriptures to the extent that our minds are emptied of 
self-opinion and human tradition. Our hearts glow 
with sweetness, tenderest love in proportion as they 
are emptied of secondary affections. It takes faith to 
bring empty vessels, 

5. Shut in with God. Elisha told the widow that 
having gathered the empty vessels, and brought them 
in the house, "thou shalt shut the door upon thee and 
upon thy sons." They were to be alone with God, 
for they were not dealing with the laws of nature, nor 
human government, nor the church, nor the priest- 
hood, nor even with the great prophet of God, but 
they must needs be isolated from all creatures, from 
all leaning on circumstances, from all traditions of 
history, from all props of human reason, and swung 
off , as it werej into the vast blue inter-stellar space, 
hanging on God alone, in touch with the fountain of 
all miracles. Here is a part in the programme of 
God' a dealings, a secret chamber of isolation in prays* 



A POT OF Oil,. 13 

and faith, which every soul must enter that is very 
fruitful. There are times and places where God will 
form a mysterious wall around us, and cut away all 
props, and all the ordinary ways of doing things, and 
shut us up to something divine, which is utterly new 
and unexpected, something that old circumstances do 
not fit into, where we do not know just what will hap- 
pen, where God is cutting the cloth of our lives on a 
new pattern, where he makes us look to himself. 

Most religious people live in a sort of tread mill 
life, where they can calculate most everything that 
happens, but the souls that God leads out into im- 
mediate and special dealings, he shuts them in where 
all they know is that God has hold of them, and is 
dealing with them, and their expectation is from him 
alone. Like this widow, we must be detached from 
outward things and attached inwardly to the Lord 
alone in order to see his wonders. The Psalmist says 
of sailors, "that they go into the deep and do business 
in great waters, and they behold God's wonders in 
the deep waters." So, in order to see God work, we 
must penetrate into his work shop, be shut in with 
him. 

6. Pouring out the oil. "Thou shalt pour out 
from the pot of oil into all those vessels, and thou 
shalt set aside that which is full." Up to this point 
the whole process had been one of dry faith and 



14 A POT OF Oil,. 

obedience, without signs or evidences, apart from the 
simple word of the prophet. At the moment that the 
widow took the little pot of oil and began to pour it 
out into any empty vessel, at that moment the omnip- 
otent Spirit of God began to multiply the oil. Then, 
and only then, the miracle was wrought, omnipotence 
was uncovered, the unseen hand of the mighty God 
was made bare, and she and her sons had all the 
evidence they needed. This is God's method of work- 
ing still, for he hides himself until our faith and 
obedience have touched the point, or the condition, 
which he has prescribed. 

The miracle was wrought right at the point where 
the oil fell from the little pot into the large vessel, 
because the pot never got empty, and when she had 
finished pouring it out it was still full of the same oil 
she had before, but the oil which filled those large 
vessels was all fresh and sweet as when first pressed 
from the ripe olives. In feeding the five thousand men, 
the bread and fish were multiplied at the point where 
they left the hand of Jesus and were passed into the 
hands of the disciples, and just as soon as Jesus broke 
a loaf and gave it to the disciples it became a whole 
loaf in their hands, and another whole loaf in Jesus' 
hands, and each half loaf became instantly a whole loaf, 
but never until the loaf was broken. It is in the 
breaking and the giving of things out that causes the 



A POT OF OIL. 15 

increase. The increase of a grain of corn never 
begins until it is broken by the sprouting in the moist 
earth and climbs up into a stalk with a hundred grains 
to one. The water that flowed from the rock in 
Horeb fell right from the spot which was smitten by 
the rod of Moses, and Paul tells us that the water did 
not come from the interior recesses of the rock, but it 
flowed out from the living Christ, who stood on the 
rock, for God said to Moses "I will stand upon the 
rock when you' smite it." 

If we put all these instances together it gives us a 
peep into the divine laboratory and see how the 
wonder-working God works his beautiful miracle of 
abundant supply always in connection with the giving 
forth or the breaking to pieces or the outpouring of 
the creature. And right here lies the glory and 
wonderful fruitfulness of our highest service of God — 
in breaking ourselves and pouring ourselves without 
stint or fear or a mental reservation in his service. 

As the widow poured out the oil the God of Israel 
wrought the increase. The same Lord who made the 
olive tree and caused it to suck up the juices of the 
earth and transform them into the olive berry with 
its rich oil, now stepped in at a poor widow's emer- 
gency, and, laying aside the olive tree, became himself 
the real divine olive tree, and produced the oil without 
the intervention of material chemistry. 



16 A POT OF OIL. 

This is the secret of the way that the same Jehovah- 
Jesus works to-day in communicating peace and love 
and light to our souls and the imparting of health to 
our bodies. But if the widow had not poured out the 
oil it would never have multiplied, and if we do not 
pour out our faith, our gifts, our love, our money, 
our thoughts, our physical strength and the very 
substance of our our lives for the Iyord, and do it out 
of love to him, the blessed miracle of increase in all 
these lines will not be brought for us. The stream 
never stopped flowing until the vessels were filled and 
she stopped pouring and then the oil stayed. As 
long as we keep pouring out, the Holy Spirit will 
co-operate in a blessed increase. If we write out a 
thought that God gives us, there will come several 
other thoughts, deeper and sweeter, to take its place. 
If we give our health, though feeble, at the command 
of God he will give us fresh vigor. If we give our 
money, he will give us more. If we utter forth 
kindness and love, the Holy Spirit will enlarge and 
sweeten the fountains of our hearts. How few learn 
this lesson — that we lose by saving and we gain by 
giving. 

7. Paying the debt and living beside. This humble 
woman, when she saw the vessels all full of fresh 
golden oil, had enough grace not to take things in 
her own hand or act rashly, but she went and told the 



A POT OF Oil,. 17 

man of God. This was one of the most beautiful 
exhibitions of her character. Many a soul will cry to 
God in its distress, and as soon as they are blessed or 
made prosperous think they can manage their bles- 
sings,' and fail to ask the Iyord what to do with their 
benefactions. Prosperity ruins many more than 
adversity. To keep humble and teachable under 
success is the highest test of all human character, 
and only a few deeply religious people are able to 
bear it. 

The prophet said, 'Go sell the oil and pay thy debt, 
and live thou and thy children off the rest." So God 
had answered her cry above all she had asked or 
thought, by not only enabling her to get out of debt, 
but gave her a surplus to live on. 

There came a time in my life of unspeakable extre- 
mity, and I cried to God for a certain amount of 
money to pay an urgent debt. The prayer was kept 
up for many weeks, with much fasting, and when the 
answer came, in a most marvelous way, God sent 
more than twice the amount which I asked for, so I 
could pay the debt and have some to live on after 
taking out the Lord's tenth. 

God loves to be tested by his believing children. 
This miracle of the outpoured oil is a blessed invita- 
tion which our Father has hung up on the walls of 
time, as an index of what he is willing to do for 



1 8 FIRST CLASS LOVE. 

thousands on thousands, who have yet to learn of that 
unlimited sea of divine love, which waits only to be 
touched with obedient faith to pour forth streams of 
supply, both spiritual and temporal, for those who 
comply, as this poor widow, with God's plan of grace 
and provision. 



II. 
FIRST CLASS LOVE. 

Many suppose that when Jesus told the Bphesian 
Church that he had somewhat against them, because 
they had left their first love, that he referred to the 
love they had in their first conversion, as babes in 
Christ. But I have often felt that our Lord meant 
something more than that, and that the love he re- 
ferred to was not "first" in the order of time, but 
"first in the order of rank; meaning they had left 
the state of pure, ardent, perfect love. So, in ex- 
amining the Greek, I find this impression of what 
should be meant by first love is confirmed. 

There are two words in the Greek Testament for 
love, the one is philos, which signifies natural affection, 
and the other agape , which signifies divine love, which 
is the pure benevolence of the divine nature. There 
are also two words for "first," one is mias, which, as 
a general rule, signifies the first in time, and the other 



first class lov£. 19 

is protos, which signifies, as a rule, first in rank. 
These words may not be used invariably in these sen- 
ses, but that is the main tenor of their usage. And 
in that verse, Rev. 2: 4, the Greek word is agape prote, 
that is, divine love of the first or highest rank. 

This is the sense in which we have utilized the 
Greek words protos in our language, as when we say 
"proto-type," by which we mean a model type, or a 
pattern, conveying the idea of rank more than the 
idea of priority in time. Also, we say "proto martyr," 
by which we mean not only the first martyr in time, 
but a model martyr. 

The Ephesian believers were among the best and 
holiest of all the early churches, and from Paul's epis- 
tle to that church we learn the very high order of their 
faith and spiritual discernment and fruitfulness. John 
wrote the Revelation over thirty years after the epis- 
tles of Paul to the Ephesians, and nearly a whole gen- 
eration had passed away, and while the blessed Jesus 
recognized their works, and patience, and hatred to 
to false doctrine, yet amid all their zeal, and ortho- 
doxy, and morality, they had lost the deep, pure, 
melting love to Jesus which always characterizes the 
high water mark of holy love. 

Hence, we learn from this word protos agape, instead 
of mias agape, that the love of a young convert, as a 
babe in Christ, however strong it may be, is not the 



20 FIRST CLASS IyOVK. 

highest form of love. A great many ministers in 
preaching from that text, who do not know the per- 
fection of love experimentally, through the abiding 
fullness of the Spirit, give an erroneous interpretation 
to the passage, and represent that the love of a young 
convert, because it is first in the order of time, is the 
best and the strongest form of christian love. And so 
they deny any perfection of love, or any higher love 
subsequent to the new birth, and magnify the be- 
liever's infant love in justification as the grandest 
epoch in gospel experience. And, instead of urging 
believers to a state of divine love, ten-fold stronger 
and higher than their first conversion love, they are 
always turning the eyes of old christians back to their 
spiritual cradle, trying to realize their conversion over 
again, and singing the backward-looking hymn, 
"What peaceful hours I once enjoyed." The love 
that Jesus wants us to give him is first class, first in 
rank, the very cream of the heart, the love of a 
spiritual bride, the protos agape, which outranks 
every other affection and every other degree of love 
which is possible to our nature. 

i . The first class love is the love of the spouse to 
the heavenly Bridegroom. It has a great many marks 
to distinguish it from the love of the partially sancti- 
fied believer. While in both stages of experience the 
love is divine, yet this first, highest rank love is pure, 



FIRST CLASS IyOVE. 21 

unselfish, unmixed with earthly motives, and far more 
positive, and concentrated, and pungent, and prompt, 
and fearless. Among the distinguishing traits of 
this first class, bridehood love, we may notice the 
following. It is intensely personal. In the weaker 
stages of christian life, love for God is of a vague and 
general nature, and the affection for a divine person- 
ality is indistinct. It is a holy love in a general way 
for the church, the Bible and good people, and for 
God, and Jesus, all more or less blended together. 
But in the higher rank of pure love for Jesus as the 
Bridegroom of the soul, there is a bright and startling 
distinctness in it for him as a person, a deep, interior 
attachment, a divine passion for the God-man, a 
personal love which is not confused in the love for 
the Father, or for the Holy Spirit, or for the saints, 
or for God's word ; a love which does not weaken but 
brightens every other love, yet so intensely personal 
for the blessed Jesus that if he were taken away, the 
soul, like a heavenly lover, would die of a broken 
heart. Again, this bridehood love is exceedingly 
tender, it is continually bathed in a sea of exquisite 
gentleness. It cures the soul of harshness and rash- 
ness, and religious scolding and sanctified severity. 

It is worth a hundred deaths for any christian to get 
into that place of unspeakable tenderness of spirit 
which a divine passion for Jesus will produce. Again, 



22 FIRST CLASS tOVK. 

this highest rank love has a lightening like vigilance 
in it : it has keen eyes to see divine things, it watches 
the dealings of God, the movements of the Spirit, the 
divine manifestations, the interior operations of grace; 
it follows close behind the Master and keeps in a frame 
of highest intellectual activity, and watches every op- 
portunity of obtaining a deeper union with Christ. 
Again, it is very sensitive for the things of God ; it is 
jealous for its Lord, and loses that miserable trait of 
touchiness which so many christian people have, be- 
cause it is so touchy toward the glory of Jesus. It 
would gladly be a door mat for Jesus to walk upon. 
It is a sweet and lavish love, which enjoys suffering 
for his sake. Again, this highest love is distinguished 
b> an intense craving for God. The heart pines for 
Christ as for an absent lover, and although it feels his 
presence warming the fountains of the soul, yet it 
craves to see him, it yearns for the beatific vision of 
the three persons in the Godhead, and longs to see the 
King in his beauty coming in his kingdom ; it is that 
leaping, bounding desire for Christ spoken of in the 
Song of Solomon. This love is covered all over with 
graces that correspond with the royalty of Jesus, and 
loves him in all his forms, and all his offices, and 
adores him as a loving despot under whose feet it de- 
lights to hide. 

2. First class love for Jesus will prompt the soul to 



first class hovn. 23 

be and do its very best for God. People who enter 
this state will have a singular prayer spring up in their 
hearts, in which they will deliberately beg the L,oid 
to do his infinite best in them, and through them. It 
will be no ordinary prayer, such as most christians 
pray at random, but a deep, solemn, earnest thought- 
ful prayer, in which they look, as it were, into the 
face of all possibilities, and of all contingencies, and in 
view of every price it may cost, and of every suffering 
it may bring, 'they calmly and bravely meet the issue, 
and plead with tears that Jesus will take utter posses- 
sion of them, and carry out in them the very best 
purposes of his love and will. Such a prayer, born 
out of bridehood love, will be accompanied or followed 
by wonderful revelations of Jesus, and of the beautiful 
possibilities of our union with him. There will open 
up to the spiritual understanding, serene ocean depths 
into the character of God that make the heart quiver 
with holy fascination at the gorgeous things in the 
soul of Jesus. And this is followed by an inexpres- 
sible thirst that Christ would pour all of himself 
through us, as blood through the veins of the body. 
From this time on the soul wants no character but 
that of Christ, it despises every thought except the 
Christ-thoughts, it wants no life but his life, no plans 
but his, no opinions but his, no love but his, then in 
deed and in truth its motto is, "Not I, but Christ." 



24 FIRST CtASS LOVE. 

3. This first class love leads the soul instinctively 
to choose a first class service. The higher we ascend 
in fellowship with God, the more accurately we can dis- 
cern the different ranks of sendee which people are 
rendering to God. There are christian people who 
serve God on the plane of philanthropy, and humani- 
tarian enterprises, or on lines of education and reform, 
and we should praise God for whatever can be accom- 
plished in these departments of service. There are 
others who serve on the plane of their denominational 
church work, and their service is largely the outcome 
of sectarian zeal and denominational pride ; they have 
hardly learned to deal with God directly, or to co- 
operate with him in a personal way, and all their ser- 
vice is through the medium of a religious system. 
There are others who serve God in a more direct way, 
but still they have mixed motives, and desire to do 
something great for the L,ord, but they are strongly 
attached to their own religious work, and they want 
some credit for what they do. But the highest love 
leads the soul out into the highest forms of service, 
which is a service in the power of the Holy Ghost, and 
a service to accomplish everlasting results in the saving 
and sanctifying of souls, and a service for Christ alone, 
regardless of self-interest. Such believers aim at not 
merely reforming people, but saving them from all sin; 
not merely at blessing people in time, but blessing 



FIRST CLASS LOVE. 25 

them in eternity. They seek not to build up a party, 
or a system, but to build up Christ in the soul. They 
don't try to get results by planning, but by prayer ; 
not to accomplish certain results, but to have God ac- 
complish his thoughts. In other words, all their 
service is up in the altitudes of the Holy Spirit. Many 
great and strong people are wasting their energies on 
some lower level of second or third class service, with 
Utopian dreams, which at the best will produce only 
brief, or physical, or local benefits. First class love for 
Christ will lead us to serve in the highest forms, with 
the highest agencies, from the highest motives, with 
the highest zeal, and under the highest light, for the 
accomplishment of the highest results, for the highest 
well-being which God has provided for us. I,et us keep 
in mind that Jesus is very sensitive to any coldness in 
the hearts of his people. In as much as his very na- 
ture is love, he is keenly alive to any lack of love in us, 
and everything else which it is possible for us to give, 
can never form a substitute for our warmest personal 
affections for him. God loves to be loved. He made 
us to love him, and if we fail in that love, it disap- 
points his infinite heart. Nothing will satisfy him but 
our best love, and every thing we do for God is accept- 
able according to the love that is in it. Hence the 
heavenly Bridegroom is ever on the alert for the protos 
agape, for those humble and crucified hearts that love 
him with their first class love, 



26 SIGNS OF PROGRESS. 

III. 

SIGNS OF PROGRESS. 

When a vessel starts out to sea, there are cer- 
tain things by which the pilot measures his speed and 
direction, such as bou3^s, light-houses, and casting the 
lead for soundings ; but when he gets well out to sea 
all these things are left behind, and he measures his 
speed by the log, and his direction by the compass and 
the stars. 

There is something very similar to this in the differ- 
ent modes by which a spiritual person measures his 
progress in the Divine life. In the earlier stages of 
christian life we measure our growth in grace by 
things easily recognized, and that lie close about us, 
such as our feelings, our contact with other christians, 
our visible success in doing something for the I^ord ; 
but when we launch out into a life of unlimited faith, 
and God takes us into a real supernatural life with 
himself, he carries us beyond the shore signs that we 
used to measure by, and we learn to make our pro- 
gress by more hidden things, like the log at sea, and 
by far off signs like the polar magnet and the heavenly 
bodies. 

It generally puzzles a believer when he makes this 
transition from shore-line measurements to finding his 
latitude and longitude on the high seas. 



SIGNS OF PROGRESS. 27 

There are many things in the life of faith which is 
best for us not to know about ourselves, such as just 
what God thinks of us, just what success we are hav- 
ing, just how much good we are doing, and just in 
what graces we excel, and what our strength in any 
given direction is ; for the simple reason that we are 
living a life of faith, and if we knew all the facts 
about our spiritual progress we should largely cease 
the living of a life of real faith. While ignorance in 
certain things 'is essential to perfect trust in the all- 
knowing One, yet there is much knowledge even 
about our growth in grace, which it is our privilege 
to have, and which we need to encourage us onwards. 

1 . One of the earliest signs that we are getting 
into deep water with the Holy Spirit is the clear 
spiritual discernment between things and beings ; be- 
tween blessings from God and a secret personal union 
with him ; between the coming and the going of vari- 
ous spiritual emotions and a steady gaze and leaning 
upon the immutable character of God. This can only 
come by a revelation from the Holy Ghost to the soul 
who has passed through certain definite works of 
grace, and learned over and over again to repose in 
the Lord Jesus instead of trusting in its feelings about 
Jesus. It is very easy for souls to learn the use of 
certain terms in religions language, before they have 
the real experience of the words, and oftentimes young 



28 SIGNS OF PROGRESS. 

christians will fluently expatiate on the difference be- 
tween the "blessings and the Blesser," when it is all 
head talk, and they soon betray their need of a blessing 
or radical work of grace. 

A deep, thoughtful christian will never speak trif- 
lingly or depreciatingly of the blessings of God in 
forgiving or cleansing the soul, and to so speak indi- 
cates ignorance and a lack of reverence for our most 
Holy God. But after the most radical and powerful 
of blessings, there will come to the soul that is led by 
the Holy Spirit a time of extraordinary revelation of 
the three personalities of the Godhead, and a deep, 
inward discernment of receiving these Divine persons 
into the heart, and a weaning from various emotions 
and states of feeling, and a most powerful attachment 
to God himself. When this becomes a sweet, power- 
ful reality in the soul, it may be taken as a proof of 
progress. 

2. Another sign of real advancement in the Christ 
life is a growing disposition to appreciate little things. 
Youth is always impressed by something big and 
startling, and this is true of youthful experiences in 
grace as really as the physical life. It takes age and 
much experience and a wide, thoughtful niind to see 
and feel and to appreciate little things, little mercies, 
little friendships, minute answers to prayer, little 
whisperings of the Holy Ghost, delicate tokens from 



SIGNS OF PROGRESS. 2Q 

God, infinitesimal leadings of Providence, little atten- 
tions from strangers, and little crumbs of comfort in 
daily life. The closer we get to God the stronger our 
vision becomes to see the value of little things, and 
the more tender our hearts become to feel the touch of 
little mercies, whether they flow out from God directly 
or indirectly through his creatures. A shallow-heart- 
ed or narrow-minded saint, regardless of his high 
profession, is constantly betraying his lack of Divine 
union by depreciating little things, and by neglecting 
them in his manners, his spirit, his words, and his 
dealings with others. 

The difference between a man of scruples and a man 
of deep love is, the scrupulous man is always stumb- 
ling over small things and making them occasions for 
quibbling and doubting, and a wretched religious 
bondage ; whereas the soul of deep love makes small 
things an occasion for gratitude, for charity, and for 
the adoration of God, by a broad-hearted appreciation. 
Just as a millionaire will appreciate making a few 
pennies, and the great artist will appreciate one addi- 
tional touch of the brush on a picture, and a great 
musician detect an almost imperceptible note in music 
which poorer and less trained minds would fail to 
notice so it is a proof of spiritual progress when the 
soul sees God in the smallest things and appreciates 
him everywhere. The greater the mind the mors 



30 SIGNS OF PROGRKSS. 

easily it comprehends the smallest details, hence the 
infinity of God is proved as much by the inconceivable 
wonders of the insect world as by the magnitudes of 
solar systems. In like manner the greater the heart 
the more minute and delicate the affections. 

3. Another true mark of spiritual progress is the 
art of going slow with God. This is the opposite of 
laziness or tardiness, which is the essence of disobedi- 
ence. Going slow in divine things never comes in a 
christian life until the impetuous will, the rash judg- 
ment, the hasty expression, the feverish excitement, 
and the green zeal of the soul, have all been crucified 
and chastened by many a painful experience into a 
quiet, thoughtful, measured pace, which indicates a 
real likeness to God. In fact, there is no one thing 
in a saintly life more supernatural, more like the 
image of God, than the art or divine recollection and 
going slow. When christians are first sanctified they 
are in a great hurry to grow, they are impatient about 
learning patience, they lose humility in being anxious 
to be humble, their quick decisions check their 
charity, and it requires many a mortification, many 
an apparent backset, either in the outward or inner 
life to burn out the creature hastiness. To have a 
soul all on fire with divine love and zeal, like a great 
engine under an enormous presure of steam, creeping 
slowly through a crowded street so as not to hurt the 



SIGNS OF PROGRESS. 3 1 

children, yet with a capacity of running seventy miles 
an hour, is the picture of a loving saint going slow 
with God. 

To be slow in our words, in our judgments of 
people and things, in our prayers, in our religious 
reading, in deciding on any line of work, in our inter- 
ior recollection and outward conduct, to be always 
occupied and never in a rush, this is the carriage of 
spiritual progress, the quiet, majestic movement of a 
soul that is putting on the habit of the royal majesty 
of God. Young christians think it is almost a sin to 
go slow, and seem to think that there is great virtue 
in mere speed, hence are apt to sing, and pray, talk 
and act so fast as to put but little thought and real 
heavenly weight in what is done. Jesus walked but 
never ran. 

4. Another sign of advance in holiness is a grow- 
ing sense of perseverance. The christian life is 
against the tide of everything in this world and in 
fallen human nature, and the more spiritual one is the 
more he is cut loose from the sympathies of earth, 
and in addition to thousands of outward trials and 
difficulties, and a great many inward weaknesses and 
hindrances, there are certain peculiar trials which 
spring from the spiritual life itself, such as its hidden- 
ness, its mysteriousness and a certain strange 
monotony in it, so that perseverance is the greatest of 
all necessities in the spiritual life. 



32 SIGNS OF PROGRESS. 

Multitudes of real, earnest christians pass through 
experiences over and over again which seem to take 
nearly all their strength, they don't just faint but 
they almost faint. Now, when these dear souls can 
detect a deeper settling of purpose to go all the way 
with Jesus, when they feel as it were the inward 
fibers of their soul tightening around the cross, when 
their will seems to be girded with a calm, fresh cour- 
age they hardly know how, and their secret prayers 
gather new vigor, it is a good, heavenly sign of real 
progress. 

5. I will mention one more sign of progress, and 
that is a disposition to universal kindness, especially 
the cultivation of kind thoughts towards eve^body. 
There are persons who are naturally full of humanita- 
rian kindness. I mean something a thousand miles 
above that. I mean something more than the easy 
flow of religious love. I refer to that stage in chris- 
tian life where, seeing the infinite worth and beauty of 
kindness, the soul deliberately and on set purpose 
chooses to cultivate kind thoughts, loving interpreta- 
tions, gentle and tender judgments, and to form this 
habit in the very fountains of the mind, not for any 
special outward results, but with a supreme choice to 
be like God in the hidden depths of our being. This 
is a sign that divine grace is rising to high tide in the 
soul. These are but a few among the particular 
marks of growth in holiness. 



A SPIRITUAL MIND. 33 



IV. 

A SPIRITUAL MIND. 

The apostle tells us that to be spiritually minded is 
life and peace. Again he speaks of having our spirit- 
ual understandings enlightened. And again of being 
joined together in the same mind ; and in another 
place.of having the mind of Christ. Peter also tells us 
to arm ourselves with the mind which Christ had when 
he was crucified. All these, and many other passages, 
ma}^ help us to form a scriptural idea of what is meant 
by a spiritual mind. It is having the intellectual na- 
ture spiritualized through the affections of a pure 
heart and brought into union with the Holy Ghost so 
as to discern things — to" reason, to form spiritual con- 
ceptions in accordance with inspired Scripture — or, as 
the Psalmist expresses it, seeing light in God's light. 

It takes something more than the grace of justifica- 
tion to have a spiritual mind ; yes, and something 
more than the work of heart purity, in itself consider- 
ed, for nothing less than the full baptism of the Holy 
Spirit will purge the natural darkness and carnal rea- 
sonings out of the intellect. 

While sanctification is an instantaneous work of 
grace, to have a spiritual mind is acquired by habits 



34 A SPIRITUAL MIND. 

of spiritual reading or by much prayer, and, as Paul 
tells us in Colossians, by setting our mind on things 
above, not on things of the earth. 

The mind is the central power of the soul between 
the affections and the will, and it is very difficult for 
the mind to act with vigor except in harmony with the 
affections. The intellect is the child of love, and fol- 
lows the bent of desire, and can learn rapidly things 
which the heart loves. Hence, the cleansing of the 
heart, and filling it with pure love, is the condition of 
having the mental nature clarified and strengthened, 
to understand the things of God. The following are 
some evidences of a spiritual mind : 

i . It is apt in learning the things of God. It has 
a taste for spiritual reading, the biographies of holy 
people, books on the deep things of God, and avidity 
for the Scriptures, and a sweet relish for the psalms, 
the prophecies, the gospels and epistles, and finds 
many a sweet morsel of inspired truth hid away in the 
Old Testament where other minds, even able theolo- 
gians, who are not divinely illuminated, see nothing 
but dry history. A spiritual mind is wide awake and 
can take in truth from a sermon or a song or a special 
providence, with a quickness and zest which much 
greater minds that are not sanctified would see nothing 
in. Many a subject which most christians have to 
take hours or days to look through and reason out and 



A SPIRITUAL MIND. • 35 

then only half see the truth and beauty in it, a spirit- 
ual mind will catch in a flash. An intellect that loves 
to think, and is entirely yielded to the guidance of the 
Holy Spirit, has an agility of motion, a quickness of 
perception, a keen appreciation of a 6ne point in 
truth incomprehensible to a natural mind. 

2. Strength is another mark of a spiritual mind. 
It takes hold on truth with tremendous vigor, and is 
serious in its thinking, and penetrates to the bottom 
of things, and in seeking knowledge on divine things 
it means business, and acts with deliberation and 
firmness. Most people professing religion seem to 
have an easy, lazy, wabbling, half-trifling intellect, 
betraying a lack of perfect sincerity, and a feebleness 
in their mental grasp of the great teachings of Scrip- 
ture. Multitudes of them joke over spiritual things, 
take up with silly, childish interpretations ; they think 
the Scriptures w T ere not made to be understood, and 
hence make no effort to understand them. A weak 
minded christian will hold a death grip upon the 
non-essentials of religion, such as the mode of baptism 
or forms of church service, but has hardly any grasp 
at all on the great truths of the three persons in the 
godhead, or the new birth, or sanctification, or the sec- 
ond coming of Jesus, or prevailing prayer, or the power 
of the Holy Ghost, or pushing evangelistic meetings, 
or the resurrection of the body, or the over-whelming 



36 . A SPIRITUAL MIND. 

issues of the coming age. As a child will fight for a 
plaything and let a kingdom slip from his hand, so 
an unspiritual mind will magnify a religious toy, and 
let a crown and a place of honor in the kingdom of 
Jesus go neglected. I have known people with very 
meager mental powers, on being baptized with the 
Holy Spirit, within a few months' time manifest a 
vigor of intellect, to grasp and remember long processes 
of Bible exegesis, and appreciate discriminations in 
doctrine a great deal better than able minded persons 
who are not spiritual. Sin may sharpen the wits in 
inventing evil things, but it weakens the mind for 
apprehending the deep interior things of the soul. 

A spiritual mind is marked by fullness and is ready 
furnished with stores of truth. When a person with 
a real spiritual mind begins to pray or speak or write, 
he does not betray any interior mental famine. There 
is a fullness of good solid ideas, and they are held, 
not in confusion, but in good order ; and however odd 
the thoughts may be, there is a freshness and direct- 
ness in their expression. Most professing christians 
who have their heads crowded with many things, seem 
to have blank minds when it comes to Scripture or 
prayer or spiritual conversation. A spiritual mind 
will keep up a continuous daily thinking upon God, 
his perfections, the vastness and minuteness of his 
administration, the bendings in the stream of provi- 



A SPIRITUAL MIND. 37 

dence, and frequent reviews of revealed truth in the 
Old and New Testament, and is always eager to ac- 
quire kuowlege that will abide and bless forever. A 
shallow- thinking christian is always liable to be duped 
by some heresy or trifling religious fad, and multitudes 
of such are always drifting from apostolic faith. 

3. When the intellect of a believer is in full union 
with the Holy Spirit, there will be in it a remarkable 
brightness. I do not mean it will be a genius, or a 
wit, flashing -outwardly with philosophic brilliance, 
but it will have an internal brightness of thought and 
perception. Such a mind will have lofty, vast, and 
beautiful ideas of God, very sweet and enticing con- 
ceptions of the eternal Father, and of the unspeakable 
loveliness and grace of Jesus, and rich, inspiring ap- 
prehensions of the blessed Holy Ghost. It will have 
well defined views of the different works of grace. Its 
theology will not be a tangled maze. It will see moral 
and spiritual qualities, such as humility, love, perse- 
verance, gentleness, and other graces, almost as clearly 
as the eye discerns colors and magnitudes in a land- 
scape. God promises to keep the souls of his fully 
trusting children as well-watered gardens, and why 
should not the intellect of such a one be like a flower 
garden or a blooming prairie, full of spiritual and 
mental beauty ? Bright thoughts are the blossoms of 
the mind. Great long vistas of coming glory that 



38 A SPIRITUAL MIND. 

open up to a spiritual mind, are the premonitions of 
what await the toil-worn feet of God's elect as they 
push their way over life's rugged surface. As the 
drunkard in his tremens has visions of snakes and grim 
monsters that are the prelude of hell, so a spiritual 
mind filled with the wine of the Holy Ghcst, will have 
at times, bright visions that stretch away in soft and 
tranquil whiteness through the coming ages. Oh 
that our minds could once be flooded with those great 
spotless radiant thoughts which angels and saints and 
our blessed Jesus are thinking this hour in the light 
of glory. 

4. Quick and well-defined discrimination is another 
trait of a spiritual mind. It readily detects truth 
from error, not by a slow process of reasoning, but by 
a heavenly instinct, a Holy Ghost intuition, which 
hits the mark more accurately than theological argu- 
ment. When God's love is strong enough to inundate 
the mind as well as the heart, it will discern the 
quality of error, and forsee its evil effects before they 
come to pass, for a heavenly mind has a prophetic 
capacity in it. It also will have power to detect the 
fitness of things as to time and place and circumstance, 
and if kept in a condition of teachableness, will be led 
to act often in the very nick of time, and with a wis- 
dom of which it is not aware. And the most import- 
ant part of this spiritual discernment is to apprehend 



A SPIRITUAL MIND. 39 

the daily unfoldings of the heavenly Father's will, and 
recognize the secret impulses that come from the Holy 
Spirit. A spiritual mind has a fixed habit of mental 
prayer, and though the outward part may be occupied 
with current events and things, yet the inner mind is 
always in the attitude of kneeling before God, either 
in praying or adoring, and as soon as the outward 
mind is free, it swings back like the needle to the polar 
magnet in mental communion with God, or the tracing 
out of his dealings and purposes. 

5. It is a source of physical vigor and longevity to 
have a spiritual mind. To keep the thoughts stayed 
on God is the condition of great peace, as Isaiah tells 
us, "God will keep the man in perfect peace whose 
mind is stayed on him." The habitual talking with 
the Lord in the mind will serve as a thick mantle 
wrapped around the soul, from the noise and bustle 
and trifles, and the wretched going on of men and 
things in the world. A fire-baptized intellect is a 
"secret pavillion," a "second veil," into which the 
soul may quietly and softly enter and rest beneath the 
golden cherubim and listen to the voice of God, for he 
said to Moses, "I will speak to thee from between the 
wings of the cherubim. ' ' 

Blessed privilege of thinking in fellowship with the 
Holy Spirit, of getting a peep into eternal day through 
the loop-holes of meditation ! How it quiets the 



40 A SPIRITUAL WILL. 

nerves, chastens our fears, invigorates the will, 
sweetens the effections, sprinkles the dew of kindness 
on our judgments of others, gently unties the chords 
that bind us to this life, gives us rehearsals of heav- 
enly things, and enables us to do our work with calm- 
ness and deliberation, and in every way, as Paul tells 
us, conduces to life and peace. 

V 
A SPIRITUAL WIIX 

When we say that everybody is just as holy as he 
determines to be, it may at first sound a little extrva- 
gant ; and most religious persons may think it 
incorrect. And yet such is exactly the case ; every- 
bod}^ on earth is just as holy as he has determined to be. 

This involves a great man> things about the will : 
not merely one spasmodic act, or a few hundred acts ; 
but it imcludes a supreme choice of the will, and also 
many thousands of minor volitions. And it involves 
a great deal as to the depth of the will, its magnitude, 
the intelligence under which it is acted, and the degree 
of perseverance, and the minutia of its acts ; and then 
that marvelous quality, essence or flavor of the will, 
which we call the ' 'spirit" of an action. Hence, the 
expression must be understood on avast scale. Never- 
theless it is true — spiritually true, philosophical!}' true, 



A SPIRITUAL WILL. 4. 1 

experimentally true — that ever}'- angel and man is just 
as holy as he determines to be ; no more, and no less. 
Let us look at this a little in detail. 

1. There are two great departments to the will, 
choice and execution ; or, the elective and persevering 
acts. Both these forms of the will are involved in 
holiness. The soul must choose to be holy, or it nev- 
er can be. The very angels were once on probation 
and had to choose obedience ; and all their accumulat- 
ed sanctity through thousands of years has been con- 
ditioned on their supreme choice of perfect obedience 
to God. The very first choices in repentance, to turn 
from sin, is choice of holiness. And after conversion, 
under added light and newly discovered needs, the 
soul again chooses holiness, with a depth and com- 
pleteness of choice it never had the capacity for until 
it was born of God. But all choices of the will are 
fruitfull only according to the amount of perseverance 
accompanying them; which is the will's executive side. 
It is sublime for a creature to deliberately choose 
God — choose to be good, and humble, and pure, and 
loving — greater than the creation of the physical 
world; but it is sublimer still to patiently persist in 
that choice through ten thousand difficulties day after 
day and year after year, through ever changing vicis- 
situdes, over seemingly insurmountable hindrances, 
both in ourselves and in our environment, to keep 



42 A SPIRITUAL WILL. 

re-inforcing that choice, and pushing it to the front of 
every other choice, until the perseverance of the 
choice becomes a supernatural despotism of the soul — 
this is what tells. 

Perseverance is the grandest quality possible for a 
created being to have. Just look at it. Every choice, 
every possibility that the soul may have would amount 
to nothing without it. Perseverance in the creature cor- 
responds exactly with the attribute of immutability in 
God; for what is Divine immutability but the everlast- 
ing continuance of God in sameness of being, so that 
His immutability is His perseverance? Again: perse- 
verance in the creature corresponds with the uniformity 
of natural law in Creation. Suppose the laws of 
Nature should suddenly cease or change, everything 
would be thrown into confusion — the air might drown 
us, water burn us, and sunlight freeze us. The 
uniformity of natural law is but the beautiful ceaseless 
outflow of God's unchanging wisdom. And persever- 
ance in the choice of holiness on the part of the 
creature, is the lovely mirror of God's immutability 
and Nature's uniformity. Thus a holy will must first 
choose holiness, and then persevere in the choice; and 
the latter requires a great deal more strength than the 
former, for a great many choose but fail to persevere. 

2. A spiritual will not only chooses holiness, but is 
constantly repeating that deep interior determination 



A SPIRITUAL WILL. 43 

from a higher standpoint, and with a wider vision as to 
its import; with an added depth of solemnity, and an 
increasing affection and sweetness in the choice. 

Because the soul is invisible, and all its actions 
spiritual, and because we are not able to measure it 
by physical proportions, or exact intellectual data, it is 
difficult for us to understand many things about our 
interior lives. For instance: a quiet, thoughtful 
decision which we make to-day, may be a hundred 
times stronger and broader than it was possible for us 
to make ten or- twenty years ago. Our spiritual nature 
grows in quality, in intensity, in intelligence, in moral 
weight, in stretch of fervor, for which there are no 
outward measurements; and an act that we perform 
to-day, may have in it a magnitude of meaning, a 
moral worth to God and ourselves, a hundred or a 
thousand times beyond what the same action would 
have had a few years ago. Hence the growth of the 
will in conformity to God, involves this multiplied 
increase of holy determination. 

3. The character of a holy will involves not only 
the choice to be holy in general, but the multiplying 
of that choice as it runs out in all the details of life. 

We must not only choose to be saved, to receive 
Jesus and the Holy Spirit; but, whether we know it or 
not, we shall each of us choose the particular type of 
piety that specially characterizes our lives. There is 



44 A SPIRITUAL WILL. 

a dominant trait in every one's religions character — 
some one thought around which religious life will crys- 
talize. With some, it is duty; with others, work; with 
others, knowledge; with others, love; with others, suf- 
fering; with others, faith. And each of these types are 
blended with other types, in endless variety and 
degrees. While there is always something in each 
Christian's heredity, or education, or habits, or 
environment, which predisposes him to a particular 
type of religious life, yet, as he grows in grace, and 
becomes positively spiritual in his whole life, there 
comes out more and more the element of His will in 
choosing a special form of spiritual life, and also in 
choosing the degree of fervor and devotion that shall 
mark his life. And as he grows into fellowship with 
Jesus, this exercise of spiritual determination becomes 
more beautiful and more%iultiplied, as well as more 
persistent. 

He chooses the various graces of the Spirit with 
deliberateness and firmness; he chooses in detail the 
various perfections of Jesus; he chooses to receive the 
' Holy Spirit as a Divine Person; he chooses to cultivate 
special fellowship with God, until his whole will 
becomes spiritualized. How long it takes us to learn 
the vast stretch of that command, "Thou shalt love 
the Iyord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy 
soul, and with all thy might !" — that is, with all thine 



A SPIRITUAL WILL. 45 

affections; and then, with all thine intellect; and 
lastly, with all thy will, Just as the Holy Ghost is 
the Executive of the Godhead, and the last Person in 
the Trinity; so the flooding of our wills With grace is 
the last and highest form of religious life. And yet, 
as the third Person of the Trinity must produce con- 
viction at the beginning of a religious life; so the will, 
in its choosing capacity, must act in the very first 
stages of a religious life; yet, taking the Christian 
life as a whole, the will in its upper ranges of spiritu- 
ality is about .the last part of our nature that graduates 
in the school of Christ. For the will never reaches 
its highest perfection until it chooses to be turned into 
love, and persistently unites itself to all the fullness of 
God. 

4. God looks at the secret determination of our 
wills, and deals with us according to the attitude of 
those wills toward Himself. 

Just as all God's character is embodied in the 
expression of His will; so God looks at everything in 
us as it is expressed through our deliberate choices 
and perseverance. Personality is the crown of all 
existence; and personality is clothed in the will. The 
Holy Spirit responds to our deliberate choices. We 
may feel utterly week, and poor, and wretched, but if 
from the depths of our being we intelligently and 
deliberately choose God, God responds to that choice 



46 NAMKS OF THK TWELVE PATRIARCHS. 

and honors it. There is something in the boundless 
majesty of God which leads Him to put more honor on 
the first pious choice of a little child than He does on 
all the instinctive actions of all the animal creation; 
and every time that choice is repeated, and expanded, 
and intensified in a long life, it calls forth a fresh 
recognition of honor and approval. 

It is with the will that we touch God; as ic is by 
His will that He sanctifies us. Every time we choose 
that which pleases God, it is like the blossoming of 
another flower in the spiritual world; and every time 
we persevere in a God-like choice it is like the ripening 
of the fruit of that flower. 

It is by the Christ-like habits of the will that we 
become one with God, and see that our mission is 
revealed in the words: "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O 
God." 



VI. 

NAMKS OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS. 

There is an inexhaustible wealth of truth and 
beauty in the Bible which bewilders us more and more 
as we advance in the knowledge of it. We shall 
never find out but a tithe of its full meaning till we 
study it through a glorified vision. I believe that 
every noun and verb and person, and place and 



NAMES OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS. 47 

incident mentioned in the word of God, has an ocean 
depth of meaning which to us in this life is fathomless. 
And then the blending and inter-blendings of persons 
and places were divinely arranged, so as to set forth a 
universe of fascinating truth which was utterly un- 
known to the persons while acting their part, just as 
God uses millions of rain drops in an afternoon shower 
to be so shone upon by the sunlight as to form the 
magnificent rainbow, and each drop unconscious of 
the part it plays in that entrancing picture. Abraham 
is God's photograph of faith, and Isaac of ideal son- 
ship, and Jacob a picture of religious experience. 
Thus faith begets sonship, and out of sonship comes 
religious experience, with its struggles and victories. 
And as from Jacob comes the twelve patriarchs, so out 
of religious experience come the manifold forms of 
virtues and graces, and this corresponds with what 
the Holy Ghost says, "that the tree of life," that is 
Christ living within us, bear twelve manner of fruit. 
This twelve manner of fruit was prophetically set 
forth in the names of the twelve sons of Jacob. St. 
John describes the city of God built of transparent 
gold, and tells us that this same city is the bride of 
the L,amb, composed of the sanctified believers in all 
the ages, and typified by the hundred and forty-four 
thousand; and he tells us that the twelve gates are the 
twelve names of Israel's sons, and the twelve founda- 



48 NAMES OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS. 

tions are the names of the twelve Apostles of the 
Lamb. With God, a name always represents char- 
acter. The ' 'gate' ' is the covenant through which we 
enter into the Bridehood of the Lamb, and that 
covenant is an absolute consecration to God, and the 
covenants were made with the patriarchs. The 
"foundations" are the doctrines of God's word, and 
these doctrines were set forth in their ultimate and 
perfect form by the twelve Apostles of Jesus, and 
upon these doctrines the sanctified' soul is to stand 
firmer than the mountains stand on the earth. Hence 
in the names of the twelve patriarchs we have a list of 
experiences through which the perfect believer is to 
pass, to qualify him for a place in the Bridehood of 
Jesus. For be it remembered, the Scriptures do not 
teach that all who are saved compose the Bride of the 
Lamb, but only those who have the three qualities of 
being converted, sanctified and tried in this present 
life; and John tells us that the nations of those who 
are saved, will walk in the light of that city and that 
that city is the Lamb's Bride. Now look at the pan- 
orama of graces set forth in the names of the twelve 
patriarchs, 

i . " Reuben, ' ' which signifies behold a son, ' 'Reu' ' 
means "to see," and "ben" means "a son," From 
this we learn that the first step to being a member of 
the city of God is the new birth. We are to become 



NAMES OK THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS. 49 

sons of God by repentance and faith in Jesus, and this 
sonship is to be so distinct that we can see it, and that 
others can see it. The new birth lies at the basis of 
all spiritual experiences. It will be intensely interest- 
ing to notice that these twelve names describe a 
spiritual biography, not only of the elect saints, but of 
our Lord Jesus as well. Thus when Jesus was born 
the proclamation went forth in all worlds. ' 'Behold 
my Son, and let all the angels of God worship him." 
Heb. 1 14-6. And in like manner, something analogous 
to the birth of Jesus takes place when we are born of 
the Spirit, and the melodious news ; circulates in 
heaven, "Behold another son is born." This is our 
entrance through the Reuben gate into the city. 

2. "Simeon," which means "hearing;" that is, 
God will hear and answer prayer. To get the beauti- 
ful shades of meaning of these different names, we 
must not only consult a good Hebrew lexicon, but 
carefully read the account of the births and naming of 
the children, in which we will find special providential 
reasons for each name. And this gives us an insight 
into the motives of the parents in giving the names 
which opens a spiritual vision to us, even much larger 
than the literal meaning of a Hebrew root. Hence 
Simeon typifies a life of prayer, which we begin to 
live immediately after we see that we are sons of God, 
In our natural birth the first thing we do is to breathe 



50 NAMES OE THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS. 

in the vital air, and the next act is to cry. So in the 
new birth, we first receive the Spirit, the vital breath 
of God, and the next act is we cry Abba Father, and 
begin to pray as a child and to receive answers from a 
Father. Having been born the Father hears his 
child and the child hears his Father. So we pass 
through the gate of hearing and answering prayer. 

3. "Levi" signifies "joined," united as in mar- 
riage. Leah knew that Jacob loved Rachel the best, 
and she prayed that by giving Jacob a third son, she 
would win his heart to love her as he did Rachel ; 
hence she named the child Levi which had in her 
mind the significance of the union of hearts. This 
typifies the complete sanctification of the believer, by 
which the heart becomes the spouse of the Lord Jesus. 
Thus we see the fruit of prayer is to bring us into 
holiness or perfect heart union with God's will. In 
all the typology of Scripture which set forth the steps 
in grace, the work of sanctification is always made to 
come soon after the new birth. Now to prove that 
this third name represents the believer finding the 
experience of holiness and heart union with Christ, 
we find that Moses in pronouncing the blessing on the 
twelve tribes follows the same spiritual order, though 
not the same literal order, for he says that Levi was 
God's holy one, who was to bear the Thummin and 
Urim, and the word Thummin means perfection in the 



NAMES OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS. 5 1 

plural number, and the word Urim means light in the 
plural number, that is Levi typified holiness with 
multiplied perfection and multiplied light. Duet. 
33:8. Thus when we get to be Levi we pass through 
the sanctification gate. 

4. "Judah," which signifies "praise." How true 
this is to experience, after the heart has been washed 
from every sinful affection, and joined in sweet wed- 
lock to Jesus, then there breaks forth a life of praise. 
And Leah said, "Now will I praise the Lord," there- 
fore she called his name Judah. 

We cannot, praise the Lord from the depth of our 
soul, and all through our being, until after the whole 
will has been joined by the Holy Ghost to the will of 
God, and then when we see things in the clear light 
of purity and love we can praise God, and even when 
the voice is silent, the very thoughts that ripple out 
from under the red # throne of the heart go softly 
singing in the ear of God. When David said, "Let 
all that is within me bless his Holy name," he cer- 
tainly could not have had an}' depravity in him. 
Thus it is by praise out of a holy heart that we enter 
the Judah gate of the city of gold. 

5. "Dan," which signifies "judging." The word 
as used here is not of condemning, or criticizing, but 
of honorable fair dealing, of the proper balancing in 
matters of equity. Dan was the first son of Rachel's 



52 NAMES OE THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS. 

maid, and Rachel said "God had judged her cause," 
hence his name. Now see how true it is that we are 
not fit to judge in a real true Scripture sense, until we 
are filled with purit}^ and praise. Thus out of the 
happy, praiseful Judah state can come forth the 
capability of rightly judging between man and man, 
and between cause and effect, and between places and 
things. Judah was the kingly tribe, and as soon as 
the king was enthroned he sat in judgment over the 
people, as in the case of young Solomon judging 
between the mothers who came to him. 

All this is wrought out, not only in Jesus but also 
in his elect saints, for the Holy Ghost affirms that the 
elect saints shall judge the angels, and those who 
compose the Bridehood of Jesus are to reign with 
him for a thousand years on the earth ; and again 
Jesus says that they shall judge the twelve tribes of 
Israel. But a moodj^, melancholy, bias minded per- 
son is not fit to judge. Hence we must be Judahs in 
praise before we are fit to be Dans in judgment. It is 
by impartial, loving discrimination that we enter the 
Dan gate. 

6. ' 'Naphtali, ' ' which means ' 'wrestlings of God. ' ' 
This was the second son by Rachael's maid, and she 
wrestled with God in much prayer for him. But 
there is another side or meaning to it, and that is in 
her spirit she was wrestling in competition with her 



NAMES OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS. 53 

sister. When we get into advanced experiences of 
grace we have seasons of conflict with the spirits of 
other people, just as conscious and distinct as if we 
wrestled with them physically. Sometimes they may 
be hundreds and thousands of miles from us, but the 
Holy Ghost annihilates space in spiritual experiences, 
and through the operations of the Spirit we can feel 
the moral condition of souls far away from us, and in 
burdens of prayer for them we can feel their antagon- 
ism, or their pride, or bitterness, or their yielding as 
the case may be. Madam Guyon speaks of this with 
great clearness. This also implies wrestling in prayer 
against evil spirits and powers of darkness. God's 
true elect ones, after having passed wonderful states 
in grace are sometimes permitted to undergo awful 
temptations, and dangerous trials, and heart rending 
conflicts with demons that are absolutely appalling. 
The greatest things in every Christian life are never 
put in biography. The best biography ever written, 
except such as God writes, gives only the outward 
shell of one's life. Shallow minded people think that 
if one goes through appalling conflicts with temptation 
and evil spirits, that such a one is always to blame for 
it, but God allows some of his best loved children to 
navigate lonely high seas of stormy sorrow, and 
wrestle with cyclones of difficulty, for reasons which 
he does not explain in the present. It is always the 



54 NAMES OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS. 

outcome of one's life in the end, that demonstrate the 
root of their character. It is these deep, lonely wrest- 
lings of soul in the upper ranges of grace, that is 
represented by Naphtali. It takes a soul that will 
wrestle its way through regiments of Satanic bayonets 
to enter the Naphtali gate. 

7. "Gad," which signifies a "troop or company." 
It implies a vision of an army of soldiers, or a great 
company in a festival procession. Gad was the first 
son of Leah's maid, and she saw in his birth the 
prospect of raising another large family of sons, hence 
his name. Just as Dan or "judging" is a delicate and 
dangerous office to fill, and that state is succeeded by 
the awful conflicts and wrestlings of the Naphtali 
state, so after the stormy trials of the Naphtali period, 
the soul is led forth in a calm, sweet place of extra- 
ordinary illumination, where it discerns the fellowship 
of saints and companionship of angels and glorified 
ones in such a supernatural way that very few Christ- 
ians have any conception of, and of which even 
sanctified souls in their earliest stages will hardly 
accredit. The Apostle Paul speaks positively of being 
brought by the Holy Ghost, where the soul has real 
communion with the heavenly Jerusalem, that is with 
the members of the bridehood of Jesus, and with an 
innumerable company of angels, and with those of the 
church of the first born, and with the Judge of all, 



NAMES OF THK TWELVE PATRIARCHS. 55 

and with the spirits of just men made perfect. This 
corresponds exactly with the Gad state in Christian 
experience. And St. Paul was not a modern spiritu- 
alist. Many teachers of holiness are hardly willing to 
accept of the extraordinary statements made in 
Scripture concerning the revelations of the Holy 
Ghost to a perfectly crucified soul for fear it may 
resemble fanaticism. But God does give to us, when 
we are perfectly dead to self, spiritual apprehensions 
of heavenly companionships and visions of the coming 
glory and reign of Christ on this earth, in which we 
apprehend myriads and myriads of jubilant ecstatic 
beings, such as Isaiah saw in his vision, Isa. 6; such 
as Jacob saw on his way to Canaan, Gen. 32. And 
such as John saw in Revelation. When we enter the 
Gad gate, we begin to apprehend our fellowship in the 
bridehood of the Lamb as never in any previous state 
of grace. 

8. "Asher," which signifies "happiness, joy." 
But in the sense in which Leah gave the name, it 
signifies a prophetic vision of the inexpressible happi- 
ness which will come to us in the future from the 
benedictions that are showered on us by the heavenly 
host. "And Leah said, happy am I, for the daughters 
will call me blessed; so she called his name Asher." 
She had a vision of the blessings that would be poured 
upon her from the lips of millions of Hebrew mothers 



56 NAMES OE THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS. 

in the years to come, This agrees exactly with what 
David and Solomon describe in their writings about 
the elect woman, that is the Lamb's bride, being 
lauded by her companions, and praised as the fairest 
among women, that is as the most beautiful company 
among the saved ones. It is possible for us to have in 
this life a remarkable insight through the Holy Ghost 
of the extraordinary happiness which will accrue to 
those who are counted worthy of the first resurrection, 
and of reigning with Christ in his kingdom. This 
happiness is the Asher gate. 

9. "Issacher," which signifies "wages or reward." 
The soul that has followed Jesus thus far in his life, 
will begin to realize, even in this world, many of the 
rewards which come to a perfectly humble and obedi- 
ent heart. It is as if the government bonds issued 
from the Hoty Ghost treasury were already beginning 
to yield a fine interest, and that with sweet fruition 
we were getting the cash fronr the celestial coupons, 
for in keeping of them there is great reward. 

10. "Zebulun," which signifies "dwelling, abid- 
ing," but especially the being domesticated in a happy 
home. This thought harmonizes with thrt wonderful 
prayer which Paul praj^ed for sanctified believers, that 
they might be rooted and grounded in love; rooted 
like a tree in the soil of love, and as the Greek has it 
"foundationed" like a house in love, with the view of 



NAMES OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS. 57 

dwelling in infinite love forever, for Paul's prayer 
implies a dwelling house with deep foundations, 
surrounded by beautiful shade and fruit trees, amid 
which the perfect believer is to keep house forever 
with God. This is the Zebulun stage of grace, and 
emblematizes the gate through which we pass into 
eternal fixedness in God. 

1 1. "Joseph," which signifies "adding, increasing, 
unlimited progress." This name is wonderfully com- 
mented upon by the Holy Spirit in many places in 
Scripture. Jacob on his dying bed beautifully 
expounds the meaning of this name, by saying, 
"Joseph is a fruitful bough, a bough by a well, whose 
branches run over the wall." He compares him to a 
fine grape vine, planted by a well of water, not only 
supplying grapes for those in the family, but running 
over the garden wall and abundantly feeding the 
strangers who lived outside the wall. And how truly 
Joseph fed not only his father's house, but whole 
nations of Gentiles as well. Thus this name reveals 
to us that state of abundant, overflowing, tender, 
boundless love, that leaps all boundaries, and runs 
over all partitioned walls, over all sectarianism, over 
all race distinctions, over all national boundaries, and 
pours itself out to the poor, the needy, the fallen, the 
crushed, the heathen, and sets no limit to its sacrifices 
for the saving and blessing of others. There are 



58 NAMES OF THE TWKI/VK PATRIARCHS. 

many even among holiness people, who seem so narrow- 
in thought, and love, and generosity, that they 
apparently are a good ways yet from passing through 
the Joseph gate of limitless love and unmeasured 
increase. But there is a place in the Holy Ghost life 
where the charity, and sympathy, and tender love, is 
simply boundless, and the whole soul is a fruitful 
bough that runs over the wall. 

12. ' 'Benjamin," which signifies "the son of the 
right hand," that is the son lifted and crowned at the 
Father's right hand, to share in the Father's govern- 
ment as a prince. All the other sons were named by 
their mothers, and this last one was named by his 
dying mother "Ben-oni," that is the "son of my 
sorrow," but Jacob changed the name to Benjamin, 
the son of my right hand. All this was fulfilled in 
Jesus. When Christ hung on the cross he was "Ben- 
oni, ' ' the son of sorrow. But a few days after, when 
he was raised and enthroned at the Father's right 
hand, he was Benjamin. He was the only son who 
was born in the land of Canaan, the other eleven were 
born in Syria. How strikingly all this is to be ful- 
filled in the elect saints. It can hardly be said that 
we have yet entered the Benjamin state, where we a«re 
lifted at the right hand of Jesus, just as he was lifted 
at the right hand of the Father, but he assures us that 
this will be fulfilled when he comes to reign on the 



A CENSORIOUS SPIRIT. 59 

earth, that we shall sit with him on his own throne, 
and share in his government of the nations, just as he 
now sits with the Father. This present earth is our 
land of Syria, in which we have through the Holy 
Ghost all the states of grace typified by the eleven 
names, but in the millennial age, which will be the 
Canaan of the world's history, we shall enter the 
Benjamin state, and be sons at the right hand of Jesus. 
Thus each of the elect are to compass the entire city 
of gold, and in a mystic sense enter through all the 
twelve gates, and thereby establish our membership as 
living factors in that city. 



VII. 
A CENSORIOUS SPIRIT. 

Censoriousness is composed of self-conceit and 
severity ; a self-conceit that we are superior to others, 
and are entitled to some sort of lordship over them ; 
and then a severity of judging others by the outward 
letter of righteousness instead of by the Spirit. There 
are other people who are censorious besides christians, 
but it does not look so conspicuous in their lives, for 
it is the very nature of religion to make a streak of 
badness look more ugly. 

Censoriousness has a special facility of fastening 
itself on a religious person, and on persons professing 



60 A CENSORIOUS SPIRIT. 

a great deal of religion, and its very intensity is in 
proportion to the intensity of religious zeal, and seems 
to find its greenest pastures in those who profess the 
perfection of love. It is a parasite which, like the 
misletoe, fastens itself on the tree of religion, and 
seeks to spread itself until it claims to be the tree, 
and, in fact, if not killed off, will succeed in killing 
the tree, which, indeed, it often does. There seem to 
be certain weaknesses, and ugly, disagreeable infirmi- 
ties, latent in the soul that nothing ever develops till 
it becomes religious, and sometimes the more intense 
the religion the -more glaring are these infirmities.. 
There is nothing disagreeable in handling a piece of 
dry wood, but if you undertake to make the wood 
pass into a live coal of fire then will develop the 
unpleasant concomitant of smoke, and soot, and 
ashes, which would never have been known but for 
the process of burning, and there is something like 
this in the soul's transition from a state of nature to 
that of the pure, burning love of God, and though all 
souls do not manifest the same disagreeable things, 
yet, as God's grace is burning us through, it seems 
inevitable that there will be a smoke in the shape of 
some religious infirmity. 

Censoriousness is not grace, but it assumes the 
profession of grace, and oftentimes of great sanctity, 
and it seems to develop in some characters only when 



A CENSORIOUS SPIRIT. 6 1 

they are really under the operations of grace, as an 
iceberg throws off a heavy fog when it comes near the 
Gulf stream. One thing is certain, that many pro- 
fessors of very high grace are very censorious, and 
they never were very censorious until some time after 
their declaration of entire yielding to God. Perhaps 
we can never understand the metaphysics of it, but we 
know it is a delusion of Satan to get religious people 
to mistake censoriousness for sanctity. One of the 
remedies against it is a clear understanding of what 
it is. 

i . A censorious person sets himself up as a stand- 
ard of religious experience, or practice, by which to 
judge all others. He has almost a boundless confi- 
dence in the superiority of his own character. He . 
never admits that he has been back-slidden in heart or 
life; he stoutly defends some ugly things in his 
disposition or conduct with the plea that they pro- 
ceeded from the highest righteousness. His anger is 
clothed with the pretty title of righteous indignation. 
His stinginess is softened into holy economy. His 
harsh words are under the sweet cognomen of being 
true to other people's souls. He lives under the one 
supreme thought that he came in the world for no 
other purpose than to set people right. If he was not 
always reproving somebody, or pitching into some- 
thing, he would think himself false to his tailing. 



62 A CENSORIOUS SPIRIT. 

His opinion concerning any church, or any association 
of christian workers, or any preacher, or evangelist, or 
writer, or book, is already made up in advance, and 
labeled like so many bottles of poison on the shelves 
of his judgment, and he is not going to change his 
opinion concerning any of these things, and does not 
want any further light, but knows enough already to 
settle him in his views. How many thousands of 
times have we denounced, or severely judged others, 
not so much because they were displeasing God, but 
because they were displeasing to us; not because they 
were in reality breaking the word of God, but because 
they were breaking our notions and offending our 
artificial taste, Oh, it is a miserable view of life, to 
turn ourselves into wooden yardsticks, and metalic 
scales, by which to weigh and measure our fellow 
christians, and then to do this under the profession of 
holiness. 

2, A censorious person persuades himself that he 
has a special religious calling to correct others, and 
especially to correct them with severe methods, and 
that this is the greatest proof of his righteousness. If 
it were not for the religion that is in the censorious 
soul, and that it has a special vocation from God, it 
would lose all its seriousness and be a comical joke; 
but the censorious man thinks his salvation depends 
on the vinegar in his nature. There are two sides to 



A CENSORIOUS SPIRIT. 63 

religious self conceit; one is where the soul mostly 
contemplates its own superiority; this produces the 
peacock professor; and the other side is where the 
soul mostly contemplates the defects of others; this 
produces the bull dog professor. The censorious man 
belongs to the latter class, for while spiritual vanity is 
a part of his make-up, } T et spiritual inquisition and 
severity with others constitutes the major part of his 
life. There are many who think that mere power to 
detect evil is a proof of holiness, and that growth in 
grace shows itself by an increasing aptness to ferret 
out the weaknesses and shortcomings of others. 
Now, it is a fact that the practice of detecting the 
defects of others will soon reach a point of almost 
scientific accuracy. 

The world is full of evil, and christians have many 
defects, though they be not actually committing sin; 
and even fully sanctified christians have weaknesses of 
manner, and taste, and conversation, and ways of 
doing things that look to a critical eye as if something 
bad were behind it, and the well-practiced eye of a 
censorious spirit will, in most cases, diagnose a subject 
with great skill. When he finds he has hit his game 
so accurately, it is only another proof to him of his 
superior holiness. And so lives on hunting his game, 
and resembles a hunting dog that is so passionately 
fond of the chase that he fails to take time to eat, and 



64 A CENSORIOUS SPIRIT. 

keeps himself a living skeleton; because all his strength 
is spent in the pursuit of game. Who ever knew a 
censorious person to be genial in company, or a lover 
of lictle children, or sweet and amiable in their private 
lives. 

It is said that fortune tellers start out with a knack 
of reading natural character, and by some practice they 
soon find a few general principles, such as a love 
affair, or some money, or a dark suspicion, or a dream 
of ambition, apply to most lives, and so they often tell 
things with amazing accuracy, until in some cases the 
devil actually gets them to believe that they are 
prophets sure enough. So the censorious person 
practices his gift of ferreting out the evils of others 
until he loses all his love, mistakes a sharp eye to be 
a pure heart, and, with the help of one of Satan's 
messengers, comes to think he is an ordained prophet 
of God, only instead of telling good fortunes he is 
always telling bad misfortunes. Hence these censori- 
ous people, with great calmness of decision, will 
consign their fellow christians to hell for any trifling 
thing that don't agree with them. 

3. A censorious spirit is never fruitful in saving or 
perfecting souls in grace, and fortunately if it grows 
on a person it becomes so offensive as not to reproduce 
its own self, and so often hinders others from becom- 
ing censorious, Persons who are gifted with the dis- 



A CENSORIOUS SPIRIT. 65 

cerning of spirits, are very seldom useful, 111 fact, 
never so, except in those cases where they have been 
crucified so thoroughly as to be utterly humble and 
loving, as was the case with Bramwell. 

I have met several persons who had an extraordin- 
ary gift of discerning people, whose lives were almost 
utterly fruitless, and I have met a few who, like Bram- 
well, while having deep discernment, were deeply 
ballasted with meekness and chanty. But discern- 
ment by itself is like a razor in the hands of a lunatic. 
The sharper the instruments, the greater need of brain 
in the surgeon that handles them ; and power to detect 
sin needs fathomless humility and boundless love to 
render it useful. A censorious man is one who lives 
in his head instead of his heart. We can never keep 
our hearts warm except by living in them. A creature 
that should be nothing but an enormous eye, without 
a breast or heart, would be a monster ; and a censor- 
ious person lives in his eye, and lets his heart out to 
freeze. Truth of itself can never bear fruit. • It is 
only when truth is heated with love that it has the 
power of reproduction. 

Censorious people think they bear fruit because they 
make such a stir, and if they can cause others distress, 
or vexation, or bring on a quarrel, or a sharp debate, 
or brow beat some timid soul till they weep, they 
think that is fruit. Fecundity, that is the fountain of 



66 A CENSORIOUS SPIRIT. 

fruit bearing, lies in the heart and is destroyed by cen- 
soriousness. As a rule, a censorious person has some 
glaring and serious inconsistency in his own life, and 
while he represents the path of holiness as very hard 
to others, he makes it exceedingly easy for himself, 
There is nothing more cheap than a rigorous theology, 
and nothing more costly than to let our love crucify 
our judgments, and always run out beyond our dis- 
cernment. A censorious spirit is a mule in the moral 
species, an adept at kicking, but having no fecundity. 
4. A censorious person is always uneasy at the 
large-hearted charity of a holy soul. He seems dis- 
tressed lest some people should slip through the gates 
into heaven that he thinks ought to go to hell. When- 
ever he mentions having charity for others, he gener- 
ally prefaces it with, "I believe in charity, but not in 
sentimentalism, or letting people off too easy-" Noth- 
ing so shocks a censorious spirit as coming in contact 
with a great ocean hearted love that makes allowances 
for people, and looks on the hopeful side. There is 
a sort of mania for religious severity which is develop- 
ed by the practice of censoriousness. It is said that 
butchers after a while grow nervous, and morose, and 
develop a tendency to suicide, from the habitual 
slaughter of cattle and the sight of so much blood. 
The case is similiar with a censorious person ; if he is 
not tempted to commit literal suicide, he does kill him- 
self spiritually. 



A CENSORIOUS SPIRIT. 67 

Severity, even though accompanied with man> gifts 
and some charitable grace, will soon wear its welcome 
out, make enemies where there is no need to, cripples 
weak believers by binding on them artificial burdens, 
divSgusts quiet, sensible people, keeps itself in constant 
hot water, and then imagines itself a heroic martyr. 

In many cases censorious people at last get broken 
down and mellowed into a little love just before they 
die. *It is not a rare occurrence, that people prophesy 
the death of some professing christians by this symp- 
tom of mellowness and love that at last breaks through 
the crust of their harsh lives, and proves that divine 
grace was strong enough to live hid in their souls 
through long years of frostiness of disposition. Oh ! 
what a loss, to wake up at last and find that years 
have been thrown away in censorious, self-righteous 
fretting over the defects of others, instead of pouring 
the soul out in a constant stream of humble kindness 
and fruitful love for others. Even sulphuric acid 
cannot hurt pure gold, but a censorious spirit will ter- 
ribly eat away the crown of rewards that is being pre- 
pared for many a brow. 

A censorious preacher in presenting Christ on the 
cross, will magnify the iron nails far more than the 
blessed person of Jesus. Some people talk as if there 
was nothing about crucifixion except the nails, where- 
as it is the living, loving heart that consents to be 



68 A GENTLE SPIRIT. 

nailed, which is the only thing worth our attention. 
Severe people talk much of crucifixion, but the deep- 
est crucifixion possible on eaith is to agree persistently 
to have our whole nature turned into love. To make 
a censorious person forever relinquish all his severity 
toward all people, and at all times, and in all ways, 
would be the deepest crucifixion and involve the most 
painful death to self possible in this life. So, after all, 
nothing kills us to sin and self but divine love. 



VIII. 

A GENTLE SPIRIT. 
When God conquers us and takes all the flint out 
of our nature, and we get deep visions into the Spirit 
of Jesus, we then see as never before the great rarity 
of gentleness of spirit in this dark and unheavenly 
world. Even apart from the criminality and vileness 
of man's fallen condition, there is a host of deformities 
which sin has entailed upon mankind. Among these 
deformities may be classed roughness, hardness, 
severity, bluntness, harshness, sourness, rudeness, 
curtness, and the painful facility of using stinging, 
cutting words, and manners, and jestures, and looks, 
and tones of voice, which are almost universally 
manifested, not only by sinners but by Christians, and 
good Christians, and even by many who advocate the 



A GENTLE SPIRIT. 69 

higher life. It is so seldom we find a real gentle 
spirit, one who is gentle all through, and gentle under 
all circumstances, that when we meet such an one it 
seems like a calla lily in a field of briars, or a patch of 
blooming prairie surrounded by rough deserts. I am 
not speaking of that natural grace which some people 
seem to inherit, for that is not deep enough. 

One of the worst criminals I ever saw was a per- 
fectly handsome young man, with a voice and manner 
so soft as a lady's. But I speak of divine gentleness 
which comes into the soul as a result of having all 
the nature and faculties perfectly subdued by the Holy 
Spirit. It is amazing what lack of gentleness there is 
among the Lord's own people. Among the reasons 
why so few Christians are thoroughly gentle in spirit 
may be the following : 

1. So few really apprehend the worth of a gentle 
spirit; they seem to overlook it as a cardinal trait in 
religion. There are so many Christians who regard 
real gentleness as a weakness, a soft, sentimentalism, 
which in some way interferes with thorough right- 
eousness, and boldness, and plain dealing, and a 
pushing zeal for God. The graces of the Spirit do 
not settle themselves down upon us by chance, and if 
we do not discern certain states of grace, and choose 
them, and in our thoughts nourish them, they never 
become fastened in our nature or behavior. Just as 



70 A GENTLE SPIRIT. 

rough wordly men look upon experimental salvatioil 
as a weak thing, fit only for old women and children, 
so a great many sturdy, driving Christians, regard 
perfect gentleness and quietness of spirit as too tame a 
thing to have much divine power in it. The more we 
possess of a certain grace, the more we see the value 
of it. 

The reason why so few Christians seek perfect 
humility in everything is because they do not see the 
infinite worth of humility. The same is true of 
gentleness; in fact gentleness is the expression of 
humility, like the odor is to the flower. 

There is something about the character of God, and 
it pervades all His creation, and every branch of His 
government, which bespeaks the infinite gentleness of 
His nature. He clothes all the vast and rugged forms 
of His works with a majestic quietness, and velvet 
gentleness, which betrays the character of His mind. 
He drapes the roughest mountain with green shrub- 
bery, or the soft blue air; even storms are edged 
around with a fringe of delicacy, and none of the 
stupendous works of God in ocean, earth or air, or 
flying worlds, have that severe, "raw-head and bloody- 
bone" appearance, which would have been the case if 
a creature had made them. 

God leaves a trace of Divine refinement on every- 
thing He touches. And when we look at His moral 



A GENTLE vSPIRIT. ^1 

government, and even at the outpouring of His wrath, 
on nations or individuals, there is not a touch of 
personal revenge, but the highest proofs of patience 
and tender pleading, and He punishes as if He wept 
while doing it, and His thunderbolts are both preceded 
and succeeded with pathetic accents, as if tender 
mercy were the garniture in which His fiery judgments 
were clothed. 

God never does anything in a harsh or uncouth 
way. He often breaks the hearts of the toughest old 
sinners with -a touch of gentleness, or a soft sweet 
voice, or the stroke of a motherly hand softer than 
the down on an angel's wing. Unless we have clear 
perceptions of the character of God, it is not likely 
that we will have a positive thirst for that character. 
Vision precedes action. We must see with our 
spiritual eye the graces of the Spirit, before we live 
them out in our experience. The words, "Behold the 
L,amb of God," must always precede the words, "Who 
taketh away the sin of the world." 

2. So few professed Christians form a deep 
determination to become thoroughly gentle in their 
nature and life. They look upon a gentle disposition 
as a beautiful flower which can grow only in favored 
spots, or as a spiritual luxury, a celestial cake and ice 
cream, which is pleasant to have in the feverish bustle 
of life, but not as being an essential staple in Christian 



72 A GKNTLE SPIRIT. 

experience. This is why so few Christians are really 
gentle. Many wicked sinners think they cannot give 
sufficient emphasis to their language without loading 
it with oaths and rude swearing. 

And in like manner, many Christians think if they 
are not rough, and loud, and impetuous, and cutting, 
that their words will have no power. Some think 
they must use "slang," and "rowdy expressions," to 
suit a certain class or strike truth home, but if such 
persons will consult the behavior of Jesus, and the 
Apostles, and preachers like Wesley, and Fenelon, and 
Fletcher, and Edwards, and Finney, men that God 
used in breaking the hardest of hearts, they will find 
that the purest, hottest truth requires no adjuncts of 
passion or street slang to give it edge. Unless we, 
from the bottom of our hearts, desire a gentle spirit, 
and then by the grace of God determine that we will 
have it, it is not likely that we will ever know its in- 
expressible blessedness. It is possible for us to desire 
sanctification, and even resolve on having it, without 
involving the proper appreciation of having a soul 
filled with all the meekness and gentleness of Jesus. 
It is a law in the spiritual life that we get from God 
just about what we determine to have. It is amazing 
how God watches and honors the deep, .serious deter- 
minations of the will of his creatures. Most men do 
not know that they determine to go to hell, but such 



A GENTLE SPIRIT. 73 

will be proved to be the fact in the day of judgment. 
Most Christians are in one sense willing to be made 
holy, but a still fewer number from their hearts desire 
to be holy, and a still fewer number ever seriously de- 
termine to become holy, and a still fewer number 
determine to have all their nature turned into spotless, 
lowly, gentle love. 

Every advance step in grace must be preceded by 
first apprehending it, and then a prayerful resolve to 
have it. Real gentleness is not a mere set of parlor 
manners that we can put off and on, it must be soaked 
into every fiber of our being, and must be drawn from 
a Divine fountain. 

3. So few are willing to undergo the suffering out 
of which thorough gentleness comes. We must die 
before we are turned into gentleness, and crucifixion 
involves suffering; and it is not a painted death, but a 
real breaking and crushing of self, which wrings the 
heart, and conquers the mind. There is a good deal 
of mere mental and logical sanctification now-a-days, 
which is only a religious fiction. It consists of 
mentally putting one's self on the altar, and then 
mentally saying the altar sanctifies the gift, and then 
logically concluding therefore one is sanctified: and 
such an one goes forth with a gay, flippant, theologi- 
cal prattle about the deep things of God; but the 
natural heart strings have not been snapped, and the 



74 A GENTLE SPIRIT. 

Adamic flint has not been ground to powder, and the 
bosom has not throbbed with the lonely, surging sighs 
of Gethsemane, and the beautiful self -constructed air 
castles have not been crushed to pieces; and not having 
the real death marks of Calvary, there cannot be that 
soft, sweet, gentle, floating, victorious, overflowing, 
triumphant life that flows out like a Spring morning 
from an empty tomb. We must not only lie in the 
tomb when we are first sanctified, but that death must 
be carried out in the little hidden details of life, and 
this involves a vast amount of quiet suffering, the un- 
ostentatious bearing of a thousand pains, and the 
speechless enduring of secret crosses, told only to God 
with silent midnight tears. But if we want to be filled 
with a gentle spirit, we must be filled with death to 
self. Many Christians seem to not understand that, 
after the instantaneous work of sanctification, there is 
a vast stretch of progress in having the mind of Jesus; 
that the will can more and more sink into God's will, 
until, in numberless ways, the choices and preferences 
on the smallest matters are sunk in the sweet, placid 
waters of the Father's will, and the thoughts can be 
more and more lifted to heavenly perceptions, and all 
the affections enlarged and flooded with the indwelling 
of Jesus, until every expression, and tone, and manner, 
in some way indicates the mark of God upon it 

To have a real gentle spirit, there must not be the 



A GENTLE SPIRIT. 75 

least secret feeling of anything bitter, or sour, or se- 
vere, or combative, or dictatorial, or sitting in judg- 
ment, or religious bragadocio. If we do not know 
how to suffer, then we will never know how to be 
gentle. 

4. To be filled with the gentleness of Jesus, we 
must put it above everything else ; that is, set a price 
on it in our hearts, above all Christian activit} 7 , above 
all preaching, or evangelistic work, or Scripture exe- 
gesis, or building of churches, or running a mission, 
or feeding the poor, or nursing the sick, or going to 
heathen lands,, or cutting a great figure in the Chris- 
tian world, or in the visible church. Who will believe 
this and comply with it? The ruin of spirituality 
among modern Christians is in putting the fussy doing 
of religion ahead of the deep, divine inward being like 
Jesus. Unless our hearts fairly break with the intense 
love of the humility and gentleness of Jesus, so that 
we appreciate being just like him in all our inward 
spirit and behavior, and esteem that first and foremost 
in the moral universe, then we must fail of ever know- 
ing him in the deep sense that Paul refers to in the 
third chapter of Phillipians. The Lamb of God re- 
veals the very sweetness of his inner life only to those 
few who esteem him in and for himself, above all crea- 
tion and all spiritual activities. 



j6 ABRAHAMIC RELIGION. 



IX. 
ABRAHAMIC RELIGION. 

Doubtless if we had lived with Abraham we would 
not have been impressed with the greatness of his 
character, and the extraordinary stretch of his faith, 
and it is possible we might have found other men 
living at the same time who would have made a much 
more favorable impression upon us. Very few of 
God's real saints can be measured by those who are 
contemporary with them, because every creature of 
the human race has inevitable imperfections, and 
individual peculiarities, which often serve to detract 
from the real magnitude of any character. But the 
work of God always has the characteristic of dura- 
bility, and of coming out into brighter light the more 
it is searched into. 

The more closely we analyze God's works the more 
wonderful they become, and the longer our study of 
them is pursued the more momentous the impression 
they make on us. This is just as true of God's work 
in making a saint or a great hero as in making a tree, 
or a mountain, or an ocean. 

God chose Abraham as a personal nucleus around 
which to crystalize the Jewish nation, Hence God 



ABRAHAMIC RELIGION. % 77 

providentially led him in such a way, and through 
such experiences, as to make him a typical character in 
setting forth the great race of Bible saints, and the 
Divine pattern of religious experience. 

We find in the life of Abraham all the items that 
go to make up a New Testament saint, and all the 
steps of christian progress that belong to the advanced 
believer of these times. First, we see in Gen. 12:1; 
that the Lord called Abram away from his father's 
house and kindred, into an unknown region, both of 
providence and of faith. ' 'The Lord said unto him, 
Get thee out .of thy country, and from thy kindred, 
and from thy Father's house, into a land that I will 
show thee." 

Migration of some sort is the starting point of all 
growth and development. There can be no progress 
for the future except by disturbing and displacing the 
arrangements of the present. Abram was called to go 
westward, into a new country, and away from old 
social environments, that his soul might not be 
entangled socially, politically, or financially, with his 
old surroundings; and this going forth into a new 
country was also a going forth of his soul into a new 
region of Divine favor. This beginning step in Abra- 
ham's life must be the beginning step in some way or 
other in every life that is given to God, and into which 
the Lord can incorporate His principles. 



78 , ABRAHAMIC REUGION. 

In thousands of cases there must still be a literal 
emigration out from our old surroundings of child- 
hood and youth, into a new section of country, and 
new surroundings, that are providentially adapted to 
mold our lives and bring forth our latent capabilities. 
But if not literally, there must still be in spirit, and 
thought, and faith, the going forth of every soul into 
a new field of possibilities to which it is divinely called. 

Second. The next distinguishing feature in the 
life of Abraham is recorded in Gen. 14:20, in which he 
returned from the slaughter of the kings, and had 
captured and his nephew, and on his return from the 
north of Palestine to Jerusalem he met Melchizedec, 
the priest of the Most High God, and gave to this 
priest of God one-tenth of all his spoils. Here we see 
that the giving of one-tenth of what we receive to God 
and His cause was practiced by Abraham six hundred 
years before the giving of the law. Hence to teach 
that the giving of a tenth of all we receive to the Lord 
is merely a part of the Jewish ceremonial law is a 
great mistake. If the facts could be gathered, it would 
be seen that many thousands of God's professed fol- 
lowers do not prosper in business, and are so much 
hindered in their spiritual lives, because they do not 
prove themselves to be the true spiritual seed of 
Abraham in this matter of giving one-tenth to the 
Lord, Multitudes of christians suppose this law is 



ABRAHAMIC RELIGION. 79 

not binding on them, and while boasting that they 
live under a superior dispensation to that of the Jews, 
do not begin to measure up in this matter to the old- 
fashioned righteousness that Abraham had before the 
giving of the law. I am constantly finding people 
who fail in their lives and finances solely because they 
rob God of His tenth. And on the other hand I am 
continually meeting fresh cases, where persons begin 
paying the Lord their tenth, on the Abrahamic line, 
and immediately God works wonders for them, both 
spiritually and temporally. 

Third. The- next step in Abraham's life is recorded 
in Genesis 15, where he received the clear witness to 
the righteousness of faith. ' 'After these things, the 
Lord said to Abram, Fear not, I am thy shield and 
thy exceeding great reward. And Abraham believed 
in the Lord, and he counted his faith to him for 
righteousness." It does not say that God's personal 
righteousness was imputed to Abraham, but that God 
accepted Abraham's faith, and counted his faith to 
him for righteousness. This event in Abraham's life 
is made by St. Paul a great, towering argument for 
justification by faith alone, without any righteousness 
on our part. The Scriptures teach four kinds of justi- 
fication; 1 st, without faith and without works, where 
Paul says that in Adam all die, so in Christ all are 
made alive, and that a free gift of justification unto 



80 ABRAHAMIC RELIGION. 

life has passed upon all men," that is upon all men in 
infant existence. 2d, a justification that is by faith 
alone, without works or any merit whatever on our 
part, but simply accepting God's free gift of Jesus as 
our own, and our sin bearer, this is the justification of 
a penitent sinner, of which the justification of Abra- 
ham in Genesis 15 is a great historical type and 
pattern. 3rd, The justification of the believer, which 
is by faith to be proved and accompanied by good 
works, that flows out from a loving faith. This is 
the justification described by St. James, and which so 
many people fail to understand, and fancy that James 
and Paul contradict each other. 4th, A justification 
at the judgment day, which is by works alone, where 
the faith is never mentioned, for we see in all the 
accounts of the judgment that the rewards and punish- 
ments are based with great accuracy on the works of 
the person, whether good or bad. This life is pre- 
eminently a life of faith, but the judgment will be a 
realm of fruit or works, which have grown out of 
faith, or the lack of faith. Thus we see that this 15th 
of Genesis is God's great light-house on justification 
by faith alone, which throws its cheering beams across 
the turbulent centuries, and guides every broken 
hearted sinner and humble penitent into the quiet 
harbor of peace with God, as a result of justifying 
faith. In the same chapter we see how God gave to 



ABRAHAMIC REXIGION. 8 1 

Abraham the witness of his favor, by sending a 
smoking furnace and a burning lamp to pass between 
the pieces of his sacrifice on the altar. This furnace 
and burning lamp very beautifully set forth the Holy 
Spirit in His operations in witnessing to our hearts 
the facts of our salvation. 

Fourth. The next epoch in Abraham's religious 
life is mentioned in Genesis 17, where he had a dis- 
tinct call to christian perfection, which was sealed by 
the rite of circumcision. ' 'And when Abram was nine- 
ty-nine years old, the L,ord appeared to him, and said, 
I am the Almighty God, walk before me, and be thou 
perfect." The word Almighty means the All-suffici- 
ent God; literally the word signifies to be outpoured, 
as from a fountain. The Hebrew word signifies a 
mother's breast full of milk for her child; and the 
secondary meaning is a fountain pouring forth a 
continual and exhaustless stream. Hence we see that 
God's call to perfection was linked with the affirmation 
that God is an eternal and exhaustless sufficiency of 
grace, and that by the outpouring of the Holy Ghost 
upon Abraham, he could make him perfect in his 
heart toward God. At this call from God, Abram fell 
on his face, and God talked with him, and made a 
covenant that Abram should be the father of many 
nations ; and then God changed his name, indicating 
the thorough and radical transformation of Abraham's 



82 ABHAHAMIC REtlGION. 

spiritual life. The L,ord said, "Thy name shall no 
more be Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham." 
The name Abram signifies father, and the name 
Abraham means a high father, that is a grandfather, 
hence the father of a great multitude. This divine 
act in perfecting the heart of Abraham in faith and 
love was accompanied by the rite of circumcision, as a 
seal to that great work of grace. In like manner, 
when believers are purified and perfected in their 
heart-life by the outpouring of the All-sufficient Holy 
Spirit, then their hearts are circumcized, and they 
become the true spiritual seed of Abraham. It is 
this work of heart circumcision, and the perfecting of 
the soul in love, that lifts the believer into the rank 
of the real elect, and constitutes him a member of the 
Bride of the I^amb. 

The New Testament invariably speaks of justifi- 
cation as being a call of God, and of sanctification as 
being the work of election; hence Peter urges us to 
make our calling and our election sure, that is our 
justification and sanctification sure. Paul often 
speaks of our justification as our calling, and then in 
Philippians, in speaking of his desire to be in the 
first resurrection, literally in the resurrection which is 
out from among the dead, he speaks of it as the "high 
calling of God in Christ Jesus." This difference 
between the calling and the high calling corres- 



ABRAHAMIC RELIGION. 83 

ponds exactly with the difference between the name 
Abram and Abraham, or father and high father. 
Thus Abraham had a definite epoch of sanctification 
in his life several years after his justification. 

Fifth. Another step in the religious life of Abra- 
ham was that of definite healing. We see in Genesis 
20:17 that Abraham prayed unto God, and the Lord 
healed Abimeleck, and his wife, and his servants. 
Thus Abraham was fully abreast with all the v advanced 
religious thought and teaching and experiences of the 
present day under New Testament light. There is 
not a single intimation that Abraham ever had any 
physician except the Lord, and if he was ever sick a 
day we do not know of it, though he lived to be one 
hundred and seventy-five years. And what is still 
more wonderful, we have no account of the children 
of Abraham ever taking drugs, or having any physi- 
cian, except the Lord, for about one thousand years, 
covering the time from the call of Abraham to the days 
of king Asa. Instead, then, of supposing that faith 
for divine healing is a new and erratic notion, it was 
believed and practiced by the patriarchs hundreds of 
years before the first lines of Scripture were committed 
to manuscript. How slow the christian church has 
been to get to the great fundamentals of religious life 
and experiences, as set forth in Abraham. 

Sixth. The next great step in Abraham's life was 



84 ABRAHAMIC RKUGION. 

the remarkable testings of his faith as recorded in 
Genesis 22. "God did test Abraham's faith, and 
said, Take thy only son Isaac, and offer him up for 
a burnt offering in the land of Mount Moriah. ' ' This 
great event of offering up Isaac constituted the climax 
in Abraham's spiritual life on earth. After that great 
crisis had past, God then spoke to Abraham, saying, 
"Now I know that thou fearest God, and because thou 
hast not withheld thy son, by myself have I sworn, 
that in blessing I will bless thee." Many people sup- 
pose that the epoch in a christian's life, when he is 
fully sanctified and baptized with the Holy Spirit, is 
the great crisis of his life, but such is often not the 
case. We see in the life of Abraham, which God ar- 
ranged to be the pattern for Abraham's spiritual seed, 
that the great peculiar crisis in his life came after 
the making of his heart perfect, in the extraordinary 
trial of his faith, in which every part of his moral be- 
ing of faith and obedience was stretched to its utmost 
tension. The Apostle James, under inspiration of the 
Holy Ghost, in searching for proofs of the effects of 
faith and the trial of faith, selects that one in Abra- 
ham's life, not where he was justified in Genesis 15, 
or sanctified in Genesis 17, but where his whole spirit- 
ual being was subjected to a crucial test, in the offering 
up of the son, and which for ever settled the character 
of Abraham, for all ages, and for all worlds. 



ABRAHAMIC REUGION. 85 

God still deals with His true servants on these old 
Abrahamic lines, and the great crisis of every saint's 
life comes after the work of sanctification. 

It is through these deeper testings of humility, and 
self-abnegation, and faith and love, that proves the 
very core of one's character, and leads the tried child 
of God out through a deeper death to self, and into 
the ocean of boundless, spotless, tender love, and into 
the abiding, fiery presence of the three persons of the 
Godhead, that glow like the sweet furnace of heavenly 
love in the soul. Just as there are a great many justi- 
fied believers who do not pass into the state of heart 
circumcision and christian perfection, so there are 
many who are sanctified but who fail in the awful test- 
ings that afterwards come to their faith, and allow 
themselves to get discouraged, or tone down, or com- 
promise, and do not reach this great gulf stream 
experience of burning love which have been witnessed 
to by many saints in all the past. 

Seventh. Another item in Abraham's faith was 
that of the first resurrection. We are told in Hebrews 
11:19, that God would raise Isaac from the dead, but 
the Greek says he counted that God was able to raise 
Isaac from among the dead, using the word which is 
constantly used to indicate the first resurrection. So 
that Abraham believed in the resurrection of the holy 
dead previous to the general resurrection. In this 



86 ABRAHAMIC RKLIGION. 

respect he was away ahead of the great mass of theo- 
logians and preachers of the present time, who blindly- 
fancy that they are in great advance of the Old Testa- 
ment saints. 

Eighth. Another item in Abraham's faith was, he 
apprehended the bridehood of Jesus, under the form 
of a glorious city of sanctified souls. We are told in 
Hebrews 1 1 , that Abraham looked for a city which 
hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God ; 
and then again that God hath prepared for them a 
city. This city is spoken of by St. John in Revelation, 
and is emphatically denominated as the L,amb's wife, 
that is, an organic structure of purified and glorified 
human beings, in the form of a city. And this city is 
spoken of by John over and over again as that special 
number of glorified saints denominated by the peculiar 
number of one hundred and forty-four thousand, which 
is taking the divine government number of twelve, 
and multiplying it by itself, and then multiplying this 
twelve times twelve by one thousand. This is the city 
whose soft golden light fell on the eye of Abraham's 
faith. 

And in connection with his apprehension of the 
bridehood of the L,amb, he also by faith apprehended 
the millennial reign of Jesus, when he would be glori- 
fied with Christ, and reign with Christ on this earth 
as ' 'the heir of the world. ' ' Paul tells us in the fourth 



ABRAHAMIC RELIGION. 87 

chapter of Romans that Abraham, through the prom- 
ises of God. became "the heir of the world." Hence 
this thought of the saints coming back with the Lord 
Jesus, as heirs of God, and joint heirs of Jesus, to own 
and govern this world, filled the faith of the patriarchs 
and prophets of the Old Testament, and we are told 
over and over again in the Book of the Psalms that 
the meek shall inherit the earth, and that the right- 
eous shall inherit the land forever, and that those who 
keep the IyOrd's way shall be exalted to inherit the 
land. 

Now look at this array of thoughts and experiences 
in the life and faith of Abraham, sweeping the entire 
range of justification, sanctification, divine healing, 
the giving of the tenth, the first resurrection, and the 
millennial reign on this earth with Jesus and His 
sanctified ones, and then compare this vast field of 
Abrahamic religion with the dwarfed, and sickly, and 
indefinite experiences of the great bulk who profess 
Christianity, and we see that Abraham, away back 
yonder in the morning of the ages, without a church, 
or a preacher, or a Bible, or a hymn book, had the 
knowledge of God and of His kingdom, and an experi- 
ence in the things of God, and a sweep of faith which 
throws into eclipse millions of those who profess to be 
living under the full blessing of New Testament light. 
Well may St. Paul, in fourth of Romans, in speaking 



88 VKSSEXS OF PRAYER. 

of the traits of a real christian, designate him as one 
who walks ' 'in the steps of that faith of our father 
Abraham." It is for those who walk in these steps of 
old fashioned Abrahamic religion to be among the num- 
ber that in the coming kingdom of Jesus shall sit down 
with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in the kingdom of God 



X. 

VESSELS OF PRAYER. 

To be a vessel of prayer implies a good deal more 
than the practice of ordinary professors of religion in 
having a few daily seasons of prayer for their own sal- 
vation or their temporal needs. A vessel of prayer, 
in the true sense of it, is where a soul has come into 
full union with the Holy Spirit, so that God can call it 
to a mission of prayer, making such an one a partner 
with Christ in his life of intercession. There are many 
degrees of prayer, and each degree may be diversified 
in numberless ways. 

The first stage of prayer in many instances, is that 
of moral necessity, where the soul cries out in great 
distress for help and deliverance, such as, "God be 
merciful to me, a sinner," or "Lord save, I perish." 

The next stage of prayer is a more thoughtful seek- 
ing of God to supply one's needs, either in the spirit- 
ual life, or in temporal, or physical blessings. Then 



VESSELS OF PRAYER. 89 

comes the widening of the spirit of prayer, for larger 
interests, such as the family, or intimate friends, the 
neighborhood, or those concerns that touch our per- 
sonal sympathies. Beyond this is a deeper state of 
prayer, where the soul thirsts for God, and yearns for 
inward holiness, for the Spirit, for victorious commun- 
ion with God. As a rule it is after all these stages of 
prayer have been more or less experienced, there 
comes a launching out into God, a life of universal, 
holy love, and the real ministry of prayer. 

1. Among the principles involved in this condition 
of spiritual life, is a definite inward call which the soul 
has to a life of prayer. 

There comes upon such a soul a sweet, constraining 
conviction that God wants to use it in a special minis- 
try of divine communion and intercession, and make 
it the channel of divinely inspired petitions. It is no 
longer the emergency prayer of necessity, nor the 
prayer of special self-interest, nor confined to things 
of local and proximate importance, but the soul is 
sweetly drawn out to lend itself unlimitedly for the 
uses of prayer, that shall be selected and in-breathed 
by the Holy Spirit. 

It has no particular choice of objects, or localities, 
or persons, but looking upon prayer as a vast spiritual 
kingdom, the soul abandons itself to the Holy Spirit, 
as a heavenly soldier, to be assigned to any depart- 



90 VESSELS OF PRAYER. 

ment of prayer, or to any object of prayer, that God 
may choose for it. 

God has so organized his creation that only a few 
things are accomplished except through the prayer 
of his creatures, and when the Holy Spirit has com- 
plete dominion over a soul, he will assign to it burdens 
of prayer for persons, places, or things according to 
his wisdom. 

Hence deeply spiritual people cannot pray ipse dixit, 
that is from their own choice, or for any thing they 
please, for having surrendered their liberty to the 
I^ord, they ask him for their prayers as for their daily 
bread, but not in such a way as to contravene any true 
scriptural prayer for ourselves or others. The Holy 
Spirit can only pray through his union with 
creatures, and as Jesus prays through his humanity, 
so the third person in the God-head prays through his 
body, the true regenerated church of God. Still he 
does not pray through all the members of that body 
with equal power and efficiency, for as the blood does 
not flow through all the members of our body with 
the same volume and force, so in like manner those 
saints in closest union with heart and head of Christ, 
have a larger, warmer, and more fruitful current of 
the spirit and prayer of Christ flowing through them. 
The call to a life of prayer in the sense here indicated 
seems to be very rare among christians, and though 



VESSELS OF PRAYER 9 1 

all christians must pray more or less, yet to be led by 
the Holy Spirit to give one's self up to the ministry of 
prayer, is one of the highest and choicest vocations to 
which God ever calls a soul. 

There are multitudes who feel called to preach, or 
teach, or do mission work, and all such need to pray a 
good deal, but occasionally we find those who have 
given themselves to the ministry of prayer. This is 
one of the highest offices of service, for it brings the 
worker into very blessed and deep union with Christ, 
and it is a service which allows of no field for external 
gifts, or showing off of talents, like singing, or 
preaching, or writing, and hence must be united with 
the hidden life of God; and it is also a service of the 
highest f ruitf ulness, as being more spiritual than other 
forms of service. 

2. One who is a vessel of prayer, will be honored 
of the L,ord by receiving many requests for prayer and 
intercession on behalf of others. 

In times of revival, one of the premonitions that the 
Spirit is going to move on the people in power, will be 
the number of requests for prayer that are made. 
Revival efforts without earnest requests for prayer ac- 
complish but little. The same principle applies to 
individuals. 

When you receive requests from many people, both 
near and remote, either by word or letter, requesting 



92 VESSELS OF PRAYER. 

your prayers, it is a great honor God is putting on 
you, which should be duly appreciated, and if you de- 
liberately take the time in private prayer to spread 
such requests before him, pleading the promises and 
merit of Jesus, you will be surprised to learn of the 
remarkable answers that will be granted, and also at 
the enlargement and sweetness that will come to your 
own heart. If you are unfaithful in this ministry of 
intercession, the requests for prayer will decrease, and 
your inner life will grow arid and tiresome. So let us 
look out for God's providential calls to service in this 
direction, and let us appreciate every opportunity and 
privilege as a direct favor from our L,ord. 

3. To be a vessel of prayer in the scriptural sense, 
admits the believer into a region of great spiritual 
light and intuitive understanding of divine things. 
This is what Paul prays, that the saints in Kphesus 
might have the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the 
knowledge of Christ, and the eyes of their understand- 
ings enlightened, that they might know the hope of 
their calling, and the riches of Christ's glory in his 
inheritance in the saints, and the exceeding greatness 
of his power, which involved partnership with Christ 
in his resurrection, his exaltation over all things, and 
his dominion in the coming age. There is a place in 
the spiritual life into which God has admitted people 
of humble and prevailing prayer in all generations 



VESSELS OF PRAYER. 93 

where the soul has the spirit of prophecy, and of re- 
markable insight into the divine personalities, the 
heavenly world, the movements of divine providence, 
especially in connection with the true church of God, 
the coming of Jesus and his kingdom. There have 
always been plenty of false prophets, and deluded vis- 
ionaries, who make loud predictions which never come 
to pass, but in spite of all these things God has always 
had his humble and anointed ones, close enough to 
him as to perceive and feel the oncoming of divine 
things. This region of heavenly revelation belongs 
especially to a life of prayer. The highest office a 
soul can fill is that of taking hold on God through the 
grace of Jesus for the things which he has promised to 
mankind. It is not the office of prayer to change 
God's nature, or reverse his purpose, but to unite with 
his nature, and to meet the conditions of his purposes, 
and take hold upon his willingness to accomplish great 
and mighly things. Our fruitfulness in the kingdom 
of heaven is what we persuade the L,ord to do in har- 
mony with his promises. 

Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are, 
and he prayed earnestly, that is with a divinely inspir- 
ed prayer, that it might not rain ; and it rained not 
on the earth by the space of three years and six 
months. And again he prayed, and the heaven gave 
rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. Elijah's 
closet of prayer is still open for candidates to enter in. 



94 DRYNESS IN PRAYKR. 

XI. 

DRYNESS IN PRAYER. 

One of the almost universal experiences which 
spiritual-minded persons at some time have to pass 
through is that of dryness in prayer. It is spoken of 
by all deep spiritual writers who treat of the interior 
life in any way. It is always a great puzzle to souls 
while passing through it, it tries their faith and per- 
plexes the judgment, and is a cause of much annoy- 
ance. It cannot be defined, but can be described, and 
its general features noted. Among them are the 
following : 

i. Dryness of thought. The mind seems to be 
very sluggish on spiritual matters and to act slowly, 
and only with more or less effort. Many persons find 
their intellectual faculties bright and active on all 
other matters, but as soon as they begin a season of 
prayer there comes a numbness over the thinking 
power. This mental dryness is noticeable especially 
in two particulars. One is dullness of perception. It 
seems difficult to form distinct ideas of God, or of the 
three divine personalities, or of the attractiveness of 
Jesus, or of the beauty and richness of the promises, 
or of our relationship to God. A mist hangs over the 
spiritual landscape, and while all divine objects are 



DRYNESS IN PRAYER. 95 

there, they seem very indistinct. In the next place 
this dryness of thought is manifest by narrowness in 
the range of vision. The mind lacks immensity and 
largeness of apprehension. This will especially be 
trying to persons who are naturally of a broad, liberal 
mind, and who love a vast sweep of vision. In great 
dryness the mind seems cramped, like a sort of spirit- 
ual headache. All this is very trying to persons who 
love to pray with all their understanding as well as 
their hearts. 

2. Dryness in feeling. There seems at such times 
to be no moisture in the affections. The emotions 
will not respond to God and truth as it seems they 
ought to. It seems so difficult to make the soul 
behave as in the presence of God, and to make itself 
feel that God is a blessed reality. There is conscious 
belief in all divine verities, and there is no lack in 
theology, but the person of God seems vague, he 
seems to have faded out in an impersonal system of 
laws, and it seems so difficult for the heart to make 
itself feel alive toward Christ. And also this sterility 
in the emotions is toward the truth of God as well as 
his person. At such times the Scriptures seem dry, 
and the sweet pathos of its biography seems gone, and 
there is no music in its heavenly imagery, and no spicy 
pungency in its promises. There is a dearth of tears, 
and the prayer seems a force-put, a mere skeleton of 
will power, without the warm flesh of holy feeling. 



96 DRYNESS IN PRAYER. 

3. Dryness of utterance. The nervous system 
partakes of the dearth and the tongue seems unable 
for fluent expression. Oftentimes this state is accom- 
panied with physical drowsiness, and the devout 
person, who really wants to pray with all the heart, 
falls asleep in the very attitude of prayer. There 
have been many instances where very spiritual people 
have had unaccountable attacks of drowsiness in 
prayer, and fall asleep against all their will power, 
and sometimes this has continued more or less for 
months. I am not explaining the reason for all this 
now, but only stating facts, though there are reasons 
for all these phenomena which form a part of the 
soul's testing in a life of faith. 

4. Distractions in prayer. The mind seems to 
lose the ability of concentration in divine things. 
Oftentimes when persons begin to pray in secret, the 
imagination becomes eccentric and flies hither and 
thither on vain or absurd subjects. The law of men- 
tal association seems caught in a tempest, and with 
the most intense desire to worship God, and draw near 
to him in communion, great waves of foolish thoughts 
break in tantalizing distractions on the mind, and the 
soul is puzzled to know if it really is worshipping God 
or not. 

Now let us notice the uses to be made of this dry- 
ness. 



DRYNESS IN PRAYER. 97 

First, if the soul is entirely yielded to God, these 
seasons of dryness will serve to purify the will, and 
make prayer to be more perfectly the fixed and delib- 
erate act of choice. The will, more than any other 
part of our nature, expresses the depth of our character 
in the sight of God. And when our prayers are not 
accompanied with brilliance and sweep of perception, 
or with freshness of feeling, but are the firm attitude 
of the will, this gives a stronger evidence of the wor- 
shipful purpose of the heart. It is a law in the physi- 
cal organism that a faculty or member becomes inten- 
sified in its action as the associate faculties or members 
are destroyed ; as when persons are blind, the ear 
doubles its acuteness for the hearing of sound, and 
those who are deaf have greater quickness of vision. 
So it is in the spiritual life, when the will has to act 
as it were alone, without the aid of vivid thoughts and 
feelings, it becomes more purely the act of the moral 
and religious personality, and while prayer in such 
a state seems very unsatisfactory to the believer, it is 
in reality very pleasing to God, because such a prayer 
rises from the deepest fountains of religious choice 
and determination. 

In the second place seasons of dryness give the soul 
an opportunity to test and perfect its holy intentions. 
It learns to worship God in the spirit and to examine 
its intentions to live alone for God. Such a soul 



98 DRYNESS IN PRAYER. 

might appropriately sa}r, ''Thou art my blessed God, 
my Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and last End, I de- 
sire with all my heart to love Thee, to worship Thee, 
to please Thee, but I am a poor helpless creature, 
loaded with numberless infirmities, afflicted with this 
dryness in prayer, with dullness in my mind and lack 
of feeling in my heart, and many foolish distractions 
of fanc}^, and often drowsy in body, yet in spite of it 
all I choose Thee to be my God, my Justifier, my 
Sanctifier, my Provider, my All in All, for whom I 
intend to live, and who art the ultimate object of my 
existence; accept of me, not according to my thoughts 
or feelings, but according to the singleness of my 
intention to be eternally Thine, through the merit of 
Thy precious son Jesus and by the operation of Thine 
own eternal Spirit." 

This habit of examining and purging the intentions, 
forms in the soul a deep interior prayer, and out of it 
comes the heavenly habit of mental prayer, and when 
the believer learns the art of continual mental prayer, 
it is like a new world in the religous life. If the soul 
perseveres in a life of prayer there will come a time 
when these seasons of dryness will pass away, and the 
soul will be led out, as David says, "into a large 
place ;" but the margin reads, "into a moist place." 
Then all the phenomena of pra}^er come back with 
redoubled freshness and vigor, the three persons of 



THE TRINITY OF PRAYER. 99 

the ever-blessed Godhead will be cleaily apprehended 
by the eye of faith, Bible truth becomes sweet and 
fascinating, and wroship becomes not only prayer but 
a continual delight in God ; the heart grows warm at 
the very thought of Jesus, and the eye moistens with 
holy feeling, and it proves the verity of the promise 
concerning "the latter rain." 

So let nothing discourage you. If the soil is dry, 
keep cultivating it, for in a dry time they say three 
harrowings of the corn is equal to a shower of rain. 
Fix the will -on God alone. Love him for his own 
sake and he will prove himself equal to all his words. 



XII. 

THE TRINITY OF PRAYER. 

A perfect prayer has a great deal of God in it. It 
is inspired by his Spirit, prompted by his purpose, 
strengthened by his will, and in a deep, mysterious 
way sets forth the operation of the Godhead. All 
creation sets forth the trinity. In the heavenly lumin- 
aries there are sun, moon and stars. In the world 
there are earth, water and air. In the zones there are 
frigid, temperate and torrid. In human destiny there 
is life in this, and then the disembodied state, where 
soul and body are separated, and then the glorified 
state, with soul and body united in the believer's glori- 

L.ofC. 



too Thk trinity of prayer. 

fication. In Scripture there are three dispensations 
of the Father, through law, and in the Son, and by 
the Holy Ghost — Mount Sinai, Mount Calvary and 
Mount Zion. 

When Jesus gives us a synopsis of prayer in Matthew 
7 he evidently spoke out of his own experience, say- 
ing, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye 
shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. ' ' 
Here are three stages in prayer, the asking, the seek- 
ing, the knocking. Jesus lived a life of prayer as no 
other being on earth ever did, and he knew in his 
human soul all the depths and mysteries of prayer, and 
when we look into his words we should remember they 
were not only spoken out of the infinite knowledge of 
his eternal Person, but also out of the acquired know- 
ledge of his human soul. Let us look into these three 
steps of prayer : 

i. "Ask/' This is the prayer of the heart, of re- 
quest, of conscious want. This is the easiest and 
simpliest stage of prayer. The prayer of asking can 
be offered by little children, by sick people, by those 
who are just beginning a life of prayer. This form of 
the simple, out-spoken prayer of the affections in- 
volves a sense of need. All prayer has it origin in 
a sense of need, and the greater the feeling of want, 
the stronger and more direct is the prayer. There 
must be a sense of need for pardon, or cleansing, or 



THE TRINITY OF PRAYER. IOI 

enlarging, or mellowing, or filling, or for healing of 
disease, or for temporal supplies, or deliverance from 
trouble, or divine guidance, or a deep sense of want 
for others' welfare, where we, as it were, take their 
needs upon ourselves. 

This prayer of the heart also includes desire, more 
or less heart longing for some promised good, some 
state of happiness or holiness which is held out before 
the soul. This intense yearning of the heart in prayer 
is more than the supply of absolute need, but a definite 
desire for well being, and blessedness over and above 
our actual needs. 

While we should not pray selfish prayers, and God 
will not hear such prayers, yet on the other hand it is 
right and proper to pray earnestly for our highest 
interest and well being. Madame Guyon was accused 
of teaching the annihilation of self to such an extreme, 
as to ignore all self interest in our present and eternal 
well being. But in her ' 'Justifications' ' she carefully 
explained that a soul of man or angel could not in the 
nature of things be indifferent to his highest welfare, 
and that she only meant that the soul in prayer should 
not have selfish motives. And Fenelon explained that 
our self interests were to be merged into motives for 
the glory of God. And then later Faber wrote most 
beautifully and accurately how God had arranged all 
our highest interests and his highest glory to be one 



102 THK TRINITY OF PRAYER. 

and the same thing. So the prayer of the affections 
includes the vastest longings of the heart for our pos- 
sible well being in holiness and usefulness. 

2. "Seek." This is the prayer of the mind, of the 
most intense activity of the understanding in searching 
after God. Of course, we must remember, that in the 
prayer of the heart, the activity of the mind is involved, 
and also that of choice and determination, for all the 
faculties act in concourse. But what I mean is the 
prayer at this stage seems to centralize itself more in 
the mental powers than in the affections or emotions, 
and the beautiful storm of divinely inspired prayer has 
swept onward from the incipient stage of mere want, 
and the storm centre is now in the thinking power, 
where the prayer engages all the wit, and reflection, 
and spiritual investigation of the mind. 

To seek is the prayer of searching. God has told 
us, "Ye shall seek and find me, when ye search after 
me." This prayer of the mind implies searching into 
our own moral conditions; and whether there is any- 
thing in us, or in our lives, to prevent the answer to 
our prayers. Such a person will say, "L,ord, is there 
anything between us to hinder my prayer, have I 
grieved thee in anything ; have I wounded thy tender 
love ; am I selfish ; have I neglected something ; have 
I left some wrong unrighted ; help me to search into 
my own life, and into my motives, and intentions, and 



THE TRINITY OF PRAYER. I03 

discover to me any lack of obedience on my part, and 
give me such perfect humility to confess and obey that 
it will be your pleasure to answer my prayer. 

This searching prayer of the mind involves also the 
hunting up of precedents, or similar cases to our own 
in Scripture, and in the lives of God's people, and 
pleading them before the Lord. This, a great point 
with lawyers in courts of human equity, and a clear 
case of parallel precedent has wonderful power to 
sway the decision of a judge. We find instances in 
Scripture where God's servants would plead what God 
had done for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, or for Job, or 
David, or Elijah, and by searching out the points of 
analogy between their cases, and God's deliverance of 
their forefathers, they made, as it were, a strong 
fulcrum on which to place the lever of their prayer. 
It pleases God to have us get wide awake, and bring 
all our mental energies to bear upon his dealings in 
the past and plead them in our behalf. 

This seeking prayer of the understanding also in- 
volves searching into the disposition of God, into his 
character and attributes, plunging our thought into 
the beautiful bright abysses of the ocean of the God- 
head, and appealing to his creative love, his eternal 
wisdom, his impartial compassion, his gentleness of 
nature, his ease of power, his ultimate glory, that by 
the answering of our prayer all his perfections will be 



104 THE TRINITY OF PRAYER. 

illustrated, the precious blood of his Son will be hon- 
ored, and his most loving purpose accomplished. 

It has often been the case with persons of prevailing 
prayer, to lay before the Lord in detail the various 
reasons why the prayer should be answered, both from 
the human standpoint and from the divine. This is 
the prayer of diligence, of searching, and far-reaching 
investigation. This is the kind of prayer that makes 
wonderful discoveries. Please notice the various 
forms of answer to the various degrees of prayer. 
Those who "ask, receive," but those who "seek, 
find," or make discoveries. 

3. "Knock." This is the prayer of the will, of 
continued perseverance, of an unflagging and constant- 
ly increasing zeal. The will has two forms of action ; 
first, that of choice, then that of perseverance. The 
will is the highest and ultimate expression of person- 
ality, both in God and in man ; hence the prayer that 
begins in the heart, and then utilizes all the searching 
power of the understanding, and then rises to the pos- 
session of all the energies of the will, is a perfect 
prayer. Thousands begin to pray but stop before 
reaching the stage of deep, abiding perseverance. 
This stage of prayer is attended with the least noise 
and scantiest exhibition of emotion of any of the 
previous stages, because it has ceased to be a rippling 
mountain current, and has become the resistless flow 



THE TRINITY OF PRAYER. I05 

of a great river, which combines, unites, and impels 
every power of the soul in one direction toward the 
throne of God. 

This prayer of perseverance is the one specially 
magnified in the teachings of Jesus, as in the widow 
with the unjust judge. In his parable of asking for 
"three loves," which, by the way, is another instance 
of the trinity of prayer, the bread is granted, not on 
the basis of friendship, "but because of importunity," 
the prayer of perseverance. In this stage of prayer 
there is a growing sense of holy determination in the 
suppliant, as if God had come over on our side, and 
encouraged us to prevail with himself. Seasons of 
discouragement are followed by reduplicated zeal to 
"give God no rest," as Isaiah exhorts us. 

This form of prayer has a triumphant ignoring of 
all sorts of hindrances and seeming impossibilities. In 
spite of darkest appearances, and in the face of being 
criticized, or undersized, or ostracized, and of the dole- 
ful prophecies of others against us, the soul secretly 
"laughs at impossibilities, and cries, it shall be done," 
as if it had discovered a secret gold mine for itself in 
the will of God, and was inwardly jubilant over the 
mighty spoil. 

Again, this highest form of prayer finds a way of 
uniting all its private and personal interests with the 
personal honor and interest of God, so as to make 



I06 JOSEPH A TYPE OF JESUS. 

common cause with the infinite One. This is the 
prayer that is answered with great ' 'openings, ' ' open 
doors, open fields of service, open visions into Scrip- 
ture, open windows into heaven to see the coming 
King and kingdom, open vistas of possible experiences 
where the soul stands victorious on the mountain peak 
and waves its banner over a new found world. 

In getting gold, men first begin ' 'asking" for in- 
formation of all kinds ; then they begin ' 'seeking, ' ' 
prospecting all over the mountains ; then they begin 
"digging," and opening up shafts to find the gold, 
which beautifully illustrates the three stages in the 
trinity of prayer, the "asking," and "seeking," and 
"knocking," which brings the soul into loving, intel- 
ligent, and persistent co-operation with the Father, 
the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 



XIII. 

JOSEPH A TYPK OF JESUS. 

There were many lives in the Old Testament which 
were prophetic types of the Lord Jesus, but no two of 
them were duplicates or shadowed forth our Saviour 
in exactly the same ofiice and relationship. The 
infinity of God breaks forth in the exhaustless variety 
which he gives to his creatures, and no two types of 



JOSEPH A TYPE OF JESUS. 107 

Jesus are just alike. Adam, Abel, Enoch, Noah, 
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Aaron, 
Samuel, David, and many others, were all pre-figure- 
ments of the Lord Jesus, yet each one furnishing a 
likeness differing from the rest, because Christ is of 
such magnitude in glory that there is no end to the 
different forms in which he may be set forth. Moses 
is the greatest type of Jesus in his prophetic office, 
Adam the greatest type in being the head of a new 
race, Joshua the greatest type of Christ as a warrior, 
David the greatest type as founder of a kingdom, 
Solomon the principal type of tranquil reign after 
conquest, Isaac the greatest type of Christ as an 
obedient son offered up to death, but Joseph is the 
greatest type of Jesus in his relation to the Jews. It 
is this marvelous prophetic life of Joseph, as setting 
forth our Lord in his relation to both Jews and Gen- 
tiles, that I wish to trace out in this chapter, and may 
our hearts be kindled with a stronger love for Jesus, 
and a deeper interest in the welfare of Israel than ever 
before. 

1. Joseph was pre-eminently the son of his father's 
love. In the account in Genesis we learn that Rachel, 
the mother of Joseph, was the woman that Jacob 
loved, and from all we learn in Scripture the only 
woman he ever loved as a wife. And hence Joseph 
being her first born he was in an especial way, over 



108 JOSEPH A TYPE OF JESUS. 

and above all his other children, the son of his love. 
So we read, "Now Israel loved Joseph more than all 
his children." Gen. 37:3. In a very special way 
this sets forth the blessed Son of God as the only 
begotten Son of the Father, and he is called by the 
apostle "the Son of God's love," and when Jesus was 
anointed with the Holy Ghost the Father spoke from 
heaven, "This is my Son, the beloved one, in whom I 
am well pleased." 

* We have not space here to dilate upon the eternal 
generation of the Word, the personality of the Lord 
Jesus, from the bosom of the Father, except to say 
that there was a divine necessity in the eternal blissful 
nature of God for the expression of God's knowledge 
of himself, and that necessary, blissful utterance con- 
stitues a divine person of outspoken love, co-equal 
and co-eternal with the Father, and from the mutual 
love of these two infinite persons, there proceeds an 
eternal out-streaming bliss of their united loves which 
is the person of the Holy Ghost, who is the joy, the 
jubilee, the ecstasy of the Father and the Son, and 
of equal nature, majesty and eternity. Thus the 
divine personality of Jesus is the only begotten of his 
Father's love, and then his temporal generation in 
flesh and blood was produced by the Holy Ghost in 
the Virgin Mary, by which he stands, both in his 
divine and human natures, the Son of infinite love, 



JOSEPH A TYPE OP JKSUS. 109 

infinitely above all angels and saints, and of which 
Joseph, being especially Jacob's first love child, is a 
faint shadow. 

2. Joseph's father sent him on a mission to his 
brethren, a mission of benevolence and brotherly relief . 
While Joseph's brethren fed their flocks some distance 
from home, Jacob said to him, "Go, I pray thee, see 
whether it be well with thy brethren, and well with 
the flocks, and bring me word again." When not 
finding them at the appointed place he still kept hunt- 
ing for them, and being accosted by a stranger the 
young lad said, "I seek my brethren, tell me I pray 
thee, where they feed their flocks. ' ' Here is a pure, 
beautiful youth, with a heart as guileless as the light, 
seeking his brethren, who were bearing the heat and 
burden of the day, with gifts and love messages from 
home for them. How perfectly this sets forth that 
pure and spotless Lamb of God, who came from 
heaven, seeking the lost sheep of the house of Israel, 
with a love for them unspeakable in its purity, tender- 
ness and unselfishness, bringing gifts and the best of 
news from their heavenly Father. Though Jesus 
came with love to redeem all men, yet the divine order 
was "to the Jew first and then to the Gentile," and 
Christ observed this order, and in an especial sense 
"he came unto his own," the twelve tribes of Jacob, 
and his own blood kin of Israel received him not ; 



IIO JOSEPH A TYPE OF JESUS. 

hence he told the woman of Canaan that his special 
ministry was to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 

3. The brethren of Joseph hated him and plotted 
to kill him, and would have done so, but Reuben, his 
oldest brother, who loved Joseph, planned to screen 
the lad and to deliver him back to his father. Gen. 
37:22. In this respect, Reuben typifies those Jews 
who believed on Jesus, and would gladly have deliver- 
ed him from the rulers, and who will form a part of 
the church of the first born. The Jewish brethren 
hated him and crucified him from the same motives 
that Joseph's brethren acted, that of jealousy and 
hatred. For they hated him because he was the belov- 
ed one, and because of his righteousness in reporting to 
Jacob their wicked conduct, and because of his piety 
and prophetic dreams from the I^ord. So the Scribes 
and Pharisees hated Jesus, because his life of spotless 
purity and his words of impartial righteousness were 
such burning rebukes to them, and because he had 
such a large following among the common people, and 
because he declared himself the son of God. 

There is no race of men that can hate more savagely, 
and more continuously than the seed of Abraham ; 
and while they have the capacity under divine grace 
of boundless love, as proved in the cases of David, 
Paul, and others, yet their envy and cruel hatred has 
had strange and unnatural manifestations in their 



JOSEPH A TYPE OF JESUS. Ill 

treatment of Moses in Egypt, and of Joseph, and 
Jesus, their greatest benefactors. Joseph's brethren 
sold him for twenty pieces of silver, amounting to ten 
dollars, and the Jewish brothers of Jesus sold him for 
thirty pieces, or fifteen dollars. 

There are many who think that "envy" is no great 
sin, but it is the very essence of murder, and has caus- 
ed the bloodiest crimes ever committed. Envy is an 
ill will to others because of their superiority in gifts, 
or goodness, or success, and the least spark of this 
feeling in the heart is the seed of hell, for it sold Jos- 
eph, rejected Moses, cursed David, killed the prophets, 
crucified the .lowly, loving Jesus, and kindles the 
flames of endless torment. If you have the least feel- 
ing of envy, flee to the cleansing blood of Jesus. 

4. The pit and the grave marked the dividing line 
between Joseph and his brethren, and Jesus and Israel. 
While they did not actually kill Joseph, yet they vir- 
tually did it, and utterly repudiated him as a brother, 
and cast him into a pit, and then sat down to feast 
themselves, very probably on the delicacies that Joseph 
had brought them, while the innocent lad was crying 
in distress and begging for mercy. That pit was, in 
a striking sense, a grave to Joseph, who had been 
stripped of his beautiful garment and subjected to a 
mortification, which was a species of crucifixion to 
him. Thus the meek L,anib of God was stripped of 



112 JOSEPH A TYPE OF JESUS. 

his seamless robe, which hands of tenderest love had 
woven for him, without a seam, like the seamless robe 
of holy love, which the Father put on his soul, and 
having killed him, he was buried in the earth. 

5. From the pit and the grave Joseph and Jesus 
are both taken up and sent forth into a far country to 
obtain a kingdom. Hence in both cases the pit and 
the grave are alike a great chasm, separating Joseph 
and Jesus from their brethren according to the flesh. 
It is true that thousands of Jews have believed on their 
brother Jesus, but in doing so they have been lifted 
from the earthly Israel into the church of Christ, and 
the church is a heavenly body of regenerated souls of 
both Jews and Gentiles, and very different from the 
rank and calling of earthly Israel, or the twelve tribes 
in their national office. 

The grave of Jesus was the passage way by which 
Christ got closer to his church, but it was the chasm 
which separated him from national Israel as an earth- 
ly people. God called Joseph by his providence to be 
"separated from his brethren," for which he received 
extra blessing (Deut. 33:16), and to go into a foreign 
country to be the agent of salvation, and to obtain a 
kingdom, as we read, "God sent Joseph before his 
brethren to be sold for a servant, until the king sent 
and loosed him and made him lord of his house, and 
ruler of all his substance, to bind his princes at his 



JOSEPH A TYPE OF JESUS. 113 

pleasure, and teach his senators wisdom." Psalm 105. 
In like manner Jesus rose from the dead and ascended 
to the right hand of God to be a Prince and a Savior, 
whom the heavens must receive until the fullness of 
the Gentiles is accomplished, and then God will send 
him back again. Acts 3:15-21. And to this typology 
of Joseph agrees the parable of Jesus in which he is 
the nobleman leaving the earth and going into a far 
country to obtain a kingdom and return. Luke 19. 
Scripture affirms that "Moses was king in Jeshurun" 
(Deut. 33:5), and Joseph was king in Egypt. So the 
tribes of Joseph and Levi furnished kings outside of 
Canaan on Gentile territory; and the tribes of Benja- 
min and Judah furnished kings in the land of Canaan, 
the land of Israel proper, which things are not with- 
out prophetic significance. 

6. The brethren of Joseph supposed when they 
saw him leave for Kg>pt they had made an everlasting 
finish with his meddlesome piety and his tantalizing 
dreams. They dipped his beautiful coat in goat's 
blood and told their father Jacob a lie, supposing that 
would put a quietus on the history of their lovely 
brother. In like manner, when the Jews saw their 
brother Jesus dead and buried, and the grave sealed 
and guarded with Roman soldiers, they thought that 
was the end of his career, and would terminate his 
tormenting doctrines. But when the sons of Jacob 



114 JOSEPH A TYPE OF JESUS. 

saw their father rending his clothes and weeping, and 
their sisters weeping, their consciences were lashed 
with many an invisible whip, and the pangs of secret 
remorse never left their bosom until they were recon- 
ciled to that banished brother. In like manner when 
the Jewish rulers condemned their innocent, lovely 
brother Jesus to death, saying, "his blood be upon us 
and our children," little did they know of the un- 
speakable woes they would bring on themselves both 
in soul and body and in national distress, and there 
are secret pangs in the breasts of poor Israel, wherever 
they may wander in the earth, and will never be 
healed until they are restored to their absent brother. 
7. In both instances while the brethren of Joseph 
and Jesus supposed they were utterly dead, and knew 
nothing as to their whereabouts, both of those breth- 
ren were working mightily among the Gentiles and 
making friends with myriads out of other nations, and 
by their wisdom and grace were building up great 
kingdoms of strength and glory. The children of 
Jacob could not have the least imagination of the 
sublime providences that were transpiring in Egypt, 
and the poor, despised brother, whom they supposed 
filled the grave of an Egyptian slave, was at the head 
of the greatest empire at that time on earth, and exer- 
cising a wisdom and love, and sovereignty, and 
winning his way over ancient prejudices, and capturing 



JOSEPH A TYPE OF JESUS. 115 

the hearts of many heathen in such a manner as to 
render him the wonder of the ages. 

This clearly sets forth the condition of things as 
between the earthly Israel of to-day and the absent 
brother, the Prince of the house of David. The 
natural Jew has no conception that his brother Jesus 
is really alive, and at the head of a vast kingdom. 
The more serious and thoughtful Israelites may be 
puzzled at the vast growth and durability of the 
religion of Jesus among the Gentiles, and they know 
that Christ has millions of followers from among the 
Gentiles, and that the civil condition of Gentile nations 
has been lifted from barbarism to marvelous improve- 
ment by the 'teachings of Christ, but they have no 
conception that Jesus is absolutely alive, and as an 
omnipotent person is at the head of the church, and 
pouring out from himself the wisdom and grace and 
strength that accomplishes all these marvels of salva- 
tion and reformation among men. Thus in both 
instances, under Joseph and under Jesus, a wonderful 
work is wrought among Gentiles, while their brethren 
supposed them to be mouldering in the grave. 

8. The first meeting of the sons of Jacob with their 
brother was fraught with trouble and distress. The 
whole account as given in Genesis is one of the most 
pathetic portions of Scripture, and can hardly be read 
without tears. Some have wondered why such a long, 



Il6 JOSEPH A TYPE OP JKSUS. 

detailed account is given to it, when other biographies 
are so brief ; and others have wondered why Joseph 
acted just the way he did. Remember that these 
things were written and divinely ordered in every 
particular by the Holy Spirit, not for their sakes, but, 
as Paul says, for the sake of those upon whom is to 
come the end of the age. 

Just as Joseph appeared to his brethren, first as a 
stranger and then as their own brother, so the second 
coming of Jesus back to this earth has two stages to 
it, the first stage to catch away his saints, at which 
time the earthly Israel will not recognize him as the 
Messiah Brother, and they will have great trouble and 
distress immediately following that event. It is very 
likely that Israel will largely be gathered into their 
own land by the coming of the Lord ; and during the 
great tribulation it would seem from many Scriptures, 
that all the Jews in the world will gather into their 
own land. It was famine that drove Jacob's sons into 
Egypt to find bread, never dreaming of finding their 
lost brother. In like manner it will be a sort of 
national, or political, or social- necessity, for the Jews 
to go back to Palestine, and, like Joseph's brethren, 
in a state of ignorance about their brother the Christ. 

Now, if we read carefully the first meeting between 
Joseph and his brethren, how he seemed to be rough 
and severe, speaking to them through an interpreter, 



JOSEPH A TYPE OF JESUS. 117 

on purpose to hide himself, and yet inquiring so 
particularly about their family and estate, then charg- 
ing them as spies, then demanding they bring the 
youngest brother, then binding Simeon before their 
eyes, and yet mingled with this severity giving them 
back their money in their sacks, do we not see in all 
this an inspired history of what Paul describes in 
Romans 11 about God's dealing with Israel, and 
exclaiming, "Behold therefore the goodness and 
severity of God," and says this in connection with a 
prophecy of the restoration of Israel, after the age of 
the Gentiles is completed, and of God's purpose to 
graft the broken off branches of the twelve tribes into 
the sweet olive tree, which is Christ. Roman 11:15-26. 
Then when Joseph's brethren returned to their 
father, there was fresh trouble, notwithstanding they 
had a supply of food, for when they recited all the in- 
cidents to their father he was in great distress. "And 
Jacob, their father, said unto them, me ye have be- 
reaved. Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, having 
been bound in Egypt, and now ye will take away Ben- 
jamin ; all these things are against me." It was 
indeed a troublesome time for the dear old patriarch. 
The trouble did not end there, but starvation drove 
them back to Egypt, and they must needs take Benja- 
min, and leave old Jacob to weep alone ; and then in 
Egypt, though they received much kindness from the 



Il8 JOSEPH A TYPE OP JESUS. 

unknown king, yet when the cup was found in young 
Benjamin's sack, they were on the verge of despair. 
It is indeed a touching history of grief and anguish, 
and they confessed that their sins of other years were 
now finding them out. 

There are abundant prophecies that a similiar his- 
tory is at no distant day to be accomplished upon the 
twelve tribes of Israel, the fleshly brothers of Jesus. 
At his appearing to gather out his elect from the four 
corners of the earth, earthly Israel will see in Jesus 
only a divine being of alarm and distress, who speaks 
to them in a strange judgment speech, and then will 
come "the days of tribulation upon all the earth," in 
which will occur the blowing of the trumpets of woe, 
and pouring out the vials of wrath, spoken of in 
Revelation, and in those troublesome times the tribes 
of Israel will go through their last great sufferings just 
before the millennium. It is spoken of "as a time of 
trembling and of fear, and of men going half bent with 
agony, like women in travail, and as being the time of 
Jacob's trouble, when all nations will fight against 
them, and the an ti- Christ will try to exterminate them. 
Jer. 30:4-7 ; Rev. 11:1-3. 

9. At the second meeting of Joseph and his breth- 
ren, though they were brought to the keenest agony, 
yet at the climax of their anguish Joseph revealed 
himself to them as their brother. ' 'Then Joseph could 



JOSEPH A TYPK OP JFvSUS. 119 

not refrain himself, and he caused all to leave his 
presence while he made himself known, and wept 
aloud and said, "I am Joseph." And his brethren 
could not answer him, for they were troubled at his 
presence. And then in tender love Joseph said, "Come 
near to me, I pray you." And they came near, and 
he said, "lam Joseph, your brother, whom ye sold 
into Egypt." Gen. 45. 

Those words, "your brother, whom ye sold into 
Egypt," were sufficient proof to them, for they had 
never let out the secret, and the revelation of that 
great sin 03^ this stranger proved that it was Joseph. 
So at the second stage of the coming of Jesus, after he 
has caught away the church of the first born, and gone 
through the wedding feast with his elect saints in the 
heavens, and the world and Israel have passed through 
the judgment tribulation, Jesus, the Prince of Glory, 
as the theocratic son of David, will return with his 
glorified saints, the retinue of his court, to this earth 
and to Jerusalem, and at that time Israel, the descend- 
ants of the twelve sons of Jacob, will meet again their 
long lost brother, and right in the climax of their suf- 
ferings, when the anti-Christ seems on the verge of 
exterminating them. Jesus, like Joseph, will no longer 
be able to refrain himself, but will drive his enemies 
out of his presence and reveal himself to all the house 
of Israel, and show them by infallible signs that he is 
their brother whom they sold and crucified. 



120 JOSEPH A TYPE OF JKSUS. 

Jeremiah says, "At the very time of Jacob's sore 
trouble he shall be saved out of it." Jer. 30:7. And 
Hosea tells us that after the children of Israel shall 
abide many days without a king or a sacrifice, that in 
the last days they will return and seek the L,ord, and 
David, their king, proving that Jesus, as David, is to 
return to this earth, and reign over the Jews, and all 
nations in the millennium. Hos. 3: 4, 5. 

Just as Joseph proved himself by referring to the 
act of his brethren, so Jesus will prove himself to Is- 
rael by showing his wounds and telling them, "These 
are the wounds I received in the house of my friends, 
that is, from my kindred." Zech. 13:6. We may 
well imagine how Joseph's brethren felt — cut to the 
heart with mingled feelings of sorrow, repentance, 
remorse and fear — when they knew that it was Joseph 
speaking to them, and were liable to sink with grief, 
and Joseph saw it necessary to comfort them and said, 
"Be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves that ye 
sold me, for God did send me before you to preserve 
life." In like manner Jesus will reveal God's great 
redeeming purpose to Israel at their restoration, and 
show them that while the Jewish rulers, and all the 
Jews who have sanctioned their conduct, were guilty 
of Christ's blood, yet it was by that very crucifixion 
a way of salvation was provided for both Jew and Gen- 
tile. And as Joseph's brethren repented with deep 



JOSEPH A TYPE OP JESUS. 121 

sorrow, so the prophet Zechariah has told us of a day 
coming when the Jews, as a people, will repent at the 
return and revelation of Jesus as their brother and 
Messiah. "In that day I will pour upon the house of 
David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the 
spirit of grace and supplications, and they shall look 
upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall 
mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son, and 
shall be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitter- 
ness for his first born. In that day there shall be 
a great mourning in Jerusalem, and the land shall 
mourn, every family apart, the family of the house of 
David apart, and their wives apart ; the family of the 
house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart ; the 
family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives 
apart ; the family of Shimei, or Simeon, apart, and 
their wives apart ; and all the families that remain 
apart, and their wives apart." Zech. 12:10-14. 

Could anything be more explicit ? Here is a proph- 
ecy that has never yet been fulfilled, for it is not the 
repentance of individual Jews, but a national repent- 
ance, by tribes and by families. And it takes place 
not in London, or in New York, but in Jerusalem, and 
in the land God gave to Israel. And it is a repentance 
produced not by preaching the gospel, as in this age, 
or by the teaching of the church, but produced by the 
open, visible manifestation of the blessed Jesus to the 



122 JOSEPH A TYPE OF JESUS. 

eyes of the Jewish people living at that time, for they 
look on him whom they have pierced just as really as 
Joseph's brethren looked into the living face of him 
they sold. And the scene of weeping, mourning, 
supplication, and heart-rending cries depicted by 
Zechariah is a scene of repentance on such a large, 
national scale, and of such soul-bursting agony, as has 
never yet taken place, at any one time, since the fall 
of Adam. The Jews failing to see in their Scriptures 
that Christ must first come in humiliation, and suffer- 
ing, and then come again in glory and royal majesty, 
have always looked for their Messiah the way we 
christians are looking for him to come again, and the 
day will come when they will see him on the throne of 
David in glory and power just as really as Jacob's 
sons saw their rejected brother on the throne of 
Kgypt. 

10. Then Joseph sent for his father and all the 
family to come to him. So Joseph had a command 
from Pharoah to send wagons out of the land of Egypt 
to bring all of Jacob's family, their wives and their 
little ones, into the land of Egypt; also he supplied 
them with changes of raiment, and silver, and abund- 
ance of provision. Do not forget that when Joseph 
gathered all his kindred to himself he brought them 
from the north down into a south land, and this is 
exactly what the prophet Jeremiah foretells of the 



JOSEPH A TYPE OF JESUS. 1 23 

last ingathering of Israel into their own land. "Be- 
hold the days come that I will raise unto David a 
righteous Branch, and a king shall reign and prosper 
and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. 
In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell 
safely. And they shall no more say the Lord liveth 
which brought up the children of Israel out of the land 
of Egypt, buc they shall say the Lord liveth which 
brought up the seed of the house of Israel out of the 
north country, and from all the countries whither I 
had driven them, and they shall dwell in their own 
land." Jer. 23: 5-8. 

This prophecy has never yet been fulfilled. When 
the Jews first entered Canaan, the}^ entered from the 
south, and then in the partial restoration from the 
Babylonian captivity they entered from the east, but 
the Holy Spirit positively affirms that in the last days 
they are to be gathered from the north and other 
countries. 

Now look at it, one-half of the Jews are now in Rus- 
sia, which lies north of Palestine, and the other half 
of them are scattered among all nations, and as Joseph 
gathered his blood kindred from the north, so the 
Jehovah Jesus, the son of David, will gather Israel, 
his kindred in the flesh, from the north of Palestine 
and from all other countries. And this prophecy re- 
fers expressly to Christ's personal reign on the earth, 



124 JOSEPH A TYPE OF JESUS. 

for it says that this king, the Branch of David, shall 
reign, and prosper, and execute judgment and justice 
in the earth. And this prophecy embraces both the 
tribe of Judah and all the other tribes of Israel, for 
they are both to be saved and dwell safely, which 
agrees with the words of Paul, that Israel shall be sav- 
ed and the natural branches are to be grafted in, after 
the fullness of the Gentiles has come. Rom. u. 

And this gathering of the kindred of Christ accord- 
ing to the flesh, is not to be in Europe, or America, or 
in the christian church, but emphatically "in their own 
land"ior nearly a hundred times God's word declares 
they are to be gathered "in their own land," and 
"never wander any more," and the last great gather- 
ing is to be mostly from the north. Notice also that 
Joseph's kindred were gathered to him in wagons 
furnished by the Gentiles, for king Pharoah gave com- 
mandment to send his horses and wagons to bring all 
of Jacob's family to live with their brother. To this 
agrees the prophecy of Isaiah. "For the Lord will 
have mercy on Jacob and will yet choose Israel, and 
set them in their own land, and the strangers shall be 
joined with them and bring them to their own place." 
Isaiah 14: 1,2. And again, "Surely the isles shall 
wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first to bring 
thy sons from far, unto the name of the Lord, because 
the Holy One of Israel hath glorified thee ; and the 



JOSEPH A TYPE OF JESUS. 1 25 

sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their 
kings minister unto thee," just as Pharoah ministered 
to the family of Jacob. Isaiah 60: 9,10. These, and 
many other Scriptures indicate a time when Gentile 
nations by government authority will transport the 
Jews in ocean steamships and railroad trains, and other 
modes of rapid transit, from all countries on earth to 
their own land free of charge. 

1 1 . After Joseph met his dear old father and all 
the loved ones, and they had wept with joy, and all 
the darkness of other years had been explained, he 
then gave them the best of all the land of Egypt, the 
land of Goshen, to dwell in. In like manner the land 
of Palestine is to again become the richest and most 
productive land on the earth. In how many places 
prophecy affirms that the land of Israel shall again be 
productive, like it was at the beginning, and the bar- 
renness will be removed, and the laud shall bring forth 
abundantly, and it shall be like the garden of the Lord. 
Ezek. 36: 30-35. 

12. Joseph having settled his kindred in a rich 
land, he reigned over them, forgave them for all their 
sins, poured his love upon them in every way, saved 
them from famine, and under his sovereignty they 
multiplied rapidly and soon became mightier than the 
Egyptians. So the writings of Isaiah, Jeremiah, 
Ezekial, Hosea, Zechariah, and other prophets abund- 



126 JOSEPH A TYPE OF JESUS. 

antly testify, that when all Israel is gathered again in 
their own land, and Jesus reigns on the restored throne 
of David, that his kindred, according to the flesh, are 
to be saved and exalted to prosperity and leadership of 
all the nations on the earth, far transcending the 
prophetic reigns of David and Solomon. Just as 
willow trees along the water courses grow stronger 
and taller than the waving sedge grass, so when Israel 
in their national capacity are restored under the reign 
of Christ will rise among the nations "as willows 
among the grass." Isaiah 44:1-5. 

Through the christian church God deals with in- 
dividual hearts, calling them as individuals, whether 
Jews or Gentiles, to repentance and faith in Christ, 
and the baptism of the Holy Spirit, to form a heavenly 
body which is to outrank the earthly Israel just as far 
as they outrank the Gentile nations. But belt known 
that God never has converted the whole, or the major- 
ity of any nation, or any city, or any province, or any 
town through the church, and never will, for it is not 
promised in Scripture, but only individual souls from 
among the n£ tions. 

But in the coming age God will institute, according 
to Scripture, a new order of converting nations as such, 
and cities as such, and in doing so he will begin by re- 
storing and saving the twelve tribes of Israel in their 
national capacity and giving them the Holy Ghost, 



JOSEPH A TYPE OF JESUS. 1 27 

and all the glory which their prophets have foretold 
and then through regenerated Israel he will work upon 
the other nations in their national capacity, and then 
nations will be born to God, and while the glorified 
church of the first born will share the sovereignty of 
Jesus, and with him reign on the earth for a thousand 
years, yet in all national administrations Israel will 
come first. "In that day he will cause the seed of 
Jacob to take root, Israel shall blossom and bud and 
fill the face of the world with fruit." Isaiah 27:6. 
These words have never yet been fulfilled. "At that 
time they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord, 
and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the 
name of the Lord to Jerusalem, and he will cause the 
house of Israel to be gathered from the north land, unto 
the inheritance of their fathers, and give them the 
land of their desire, and give them the heritage of 
glory, and of beauty, among the hosts of the nations." 
Jer. 3: 19. (Marginal readings.) 

How explicit this prophecy which does not refer to 
the christian church, but emphatically to restore Israel 
with the throne of world-wide government in the city 
of Jerusalem, and all nations by their representatives 
being gathered there, and the tribes of Israel being 
the most glorious and at the head of the hosts of na- 
tions. The church is God's heavenly elect, especially 
the church of the first born, but Israel is God's earthly 



128 EABER ON JUDGING OTHERS. 

elect from among the nations. The church deals with 
individuals, but Israel deals with nations. And thus 
all the way through, God honored the patriarch Joseph 
by making him a type of the blessed I,ord Jesus, in 
his relation to his kindred according to the flesh, and 
there is yet to come a glorious day of reconciliation of 
the seed of the sons of Jacob to their meek and lowly 
brother, the heavenly Joseph. 



XIV. 

FABER ON JUDGING OTHERS. 

With regard to our judgment of others, we may 
safely say there has never lived a christian that did 
not, at some time, have to repent for judging his 
fellows too harshly. And, on the other hand, there 
never has lived a christian that ever had to repent of 
being too loving, compassionate or charitable. Faber, 
in one of his books writing on the different classes of 
believers, has some excellent remarks on the judging 
of others, which, I think, very helpful, and so omit- 
ting those phrases which are peculiar to Catholics, 
and, compiling his thoughts from different pages, I 
will give the reader the substance of his remarks. 

i. "It is a universal law that when we judge 
others, whether individuals or multitudes, we come to 
erroneous conclusions from the mere fact that we 



FABER ON JUDGING OTHERS. 1 29 

naturally judge over harshly. It is one of the effects 
of our fallen nature to put the worst construction upon 
what we see or hear about others, and to make small, 
if any, allowance for the hidden good that is in them. 
Also, we unwittingly judge of others by the worst 
parts of our own disposition, and not by the best. It 
is natural for us to judge of ourselves by the best 
things, in us, but we judge of others by the worst 
things in us. It is so common to impute our evil to 
others, but to think our goodness is peculiarly our 
own." 

2. "Severity is one of the natural accompaniments 
of a young and inmature state of grace. Many relig- 
ious people think that the power to detect evil in 
others is a special gift from God, to be prized and 
cultivated, and if such people are inclined to hunt for 
evil they can always find it to their satisfaction, but 
the practice begets a habit of supicion which is utterly 
ruinous to the deep love of God and to Christlikeness 
of disposition. Men are never industrious in finding 
out the good about others, but have a terrific swiftness 
in seeing the evil, and even religious people, in many 
instances, have an awful propensity for circulating the 
evil, but they are very slow to tell the good." It is 
also a trait among human beings to be most severe 
with those of their own class, or guild, or profession. 
Whoever knew a musician to speak commendatory 



130 FABER ON JUDGING OTHERS. 

words of another musician. Merchants are severe on 
merchants, and it is proverbial the world over that re- 
ligious people are severe on their fellow religionists. 
This is partly accounted for because each class of man- 
kind is more familiar with the defects, and infirmities, 
and sins which are liable to affect their class. 

3. "When we see evil in others, we never can see 
the amount of inward resistance which the person has 
given to the evil, or the amount of humiliation and 
sorrow which the> may have for their own failures 
and defects. The violence of temptation is always in- 
visible, and its peculiar oppressiveness, owing to 
heredity, or education, or previous modes of life, can 
never be estimated by a fellow creature. There are 
depths of invincible ignorance not only in the intellect- 
ual nature, but in a man's moral nature, which every 
individual character has in some one or more direc- 
tions, and it is almost universally true that even among 
good religious people there is one point of moral ex- 
cellence upon which they seem stupid. This explains 
why we meet so many very excellent people who seem 
to have some one glaring inconsistency — and every- 
body has some inconsistency, only they all have not 
the deep humility to see it. In judging others we fail 
to see how many odd crossings there are in people's 
minds, which tell upon their motives and hamper the 
free action of their moral sense. / Much sin lies at the 



EABER ON JUDGING OTHERS. I31 

door of a warped mind, but how much guilt there is in 
the sin can be known to God alone. The heart is the 
jewel that he covets for his crown, and if the habitual 
attitude of the heart is better than any particular 
action which we see, God be praised for it. The fall 
of man is so great, that in this present world it may be 
there is no one entirely free from obliquity in the per- 
ception of perfect, universal justice." 

4. "The evil in our fellows strikes us with bold, 
startling proportions, whereas goodness is more quiet 
and hidden, and often passes unobserved as a very 
tame affair. It must be observed that evil, of its own 
nature, is more visible than goodness. Evil is like the 
world, loud, rude, anxious, hurried, impetuous, and 
ever acting on the self defensive ; while goodness par- 
takes of the nature of God and imitates the ways of 
God, of quietness, unobstrusiveness, slowness, non- 
combativeness, and meekly suffers instead of defending 
itself, and is saturated with the Spirit of God in his 
feelings and conduct. ' ' 

"The evil we see, or think we see in others, is easily 
recognized, but oftentimes the people we are judging 
are more keenly alive to their defects than we imagine, 
and may grieve over them in secret and feel in their 
hearts a humiliation and sorrow for them which we 
cannot know of, for if sorrow for evil were ostentatious 
and glaring, that would destroy its true character. 



132 FABKR ON JUDGING OTHERS. 

God has so contrived the moral world that the greater 
part of goodness must of necessity be hidden like him- 
self. There are many things that baffle our judgment 
as to the sincerity of a man's conversion, but we may 
depend upon it that a thousand spots which look to 
us desert waste, God's mercy is finding something 
there for his glory. ' * 

5. "One of the frightful features of the world, and 
which is hard to dwell upon without some gloom pass- 
ing over our spirits, is that of the apalling activity of 
Satan, and under his leadership myriads of demons are 
incessantly plying our fellow creatures with every 
possible subtlety and devise for their ruin. To judge 
of others without taking into consideration the wide- 
spread tyranny of evil spirits, would be both unscrip- 
tural and unjust. One while Satan is persecuting 
the good, even stirring good christians against good 
christians, weaving webs of diplomacy and compromise 
around the advocates of christian perfection, or bend- 
ing all his energies on the ruin of some one who is 
doing a notable work for God, or sapping the founda- 
tions of a revival church, or causing christian warriors 
to misinterpret their orders on the battlefield, causing 
them to fire into each other's ranks, and working in a 
thousand ways both with individuals and bodies of 
men. This terrible work of evil spirits, described by 
St. Paul in Kphesians unconsciously affects our judg- 



PAB3R ON JUDGING OTHERS. 1 33 

ment of others. But we fail to see that God is ten 
thousand times more active than Satan, though he 
seems to be less so. The reason is because we do not 
know how to follow God in the deep seclusion of his 
work, for he works opposite to the methods of Satan, 
and is constantly accomplishing marvelous things in 
human souls which we do not suspect, because we are 
not heavenly minded enough to trace the foot prints 
of his operations. If we actually saw what God is 
doing in the very people we often criticise and condemn, 
we would be utterly astonished at the immensity, the 
vigor, and the versatility of the magnificent spiritual 
work which God is doing all around us in the world. 

"Satan is active, but grace is more active. If the 
vigor of God abides in every atom of the inanimate 
world, shall we doubt that his presence pervades and 
controls in the world of human souls, by the energies 
of an all-wise Providence, beyond all our conjecture, 
especially when all his majestic operations have for 
their single end the accomplishment of infinite love. ' ' 

5. "We see the evil in our fellows much sooner 
than the good. On a very short acquaintance with a 
person we discover their defects, and the things in 
them which are disagreeable to us, and soon find the 
weak point in them where they are most likely to fall, 
but their better nature is more slowly unfolding itself. 
This invisible character of goodness is not so obstrusive 



134 FABER ON JUDGING OTHERS. 

as defects, because there is an instinctive bashfulness 
in real goodness, even without a man's intending it. 
When we know people a long while, especially if we 
love them, there is apt to be the continual breaking 
forth of virtues in them we never dreamed they pos- 
sessed and oftentimes in little things, in the ordinary 
wear and tear of life, there will come forth in unosten- 
tatious ways traits of humility and self depreciation, 
or a patience and sweetness, and unselfishness, beyond 
what we expected of them. ' ' 

7. "In our opinions of others we fail to distinguish 
between the sinfulness of sin and the deformity which 
has resulted from sin. There are many things in 
truly good people that are extremely very disagreeable, 
which may not involve real sin, and it is this disagree- 
ableness, or deformity, which spreads itself out and 
covers a greater extent in our estimation of people 
than their actual sin, for this deformity infects the 
manners, taints the tone and atmosphere of a person, 
and altogether makes a much greater show than real 
sin. And we judge of people, not so much by how 
they stand to God, as by the inconvenient or disagree- 
able way in which they may stand to us. ' ' 

"Much that the eye catches, which is offensive to 
our moral sense, may not be real sin, and yet we con- 
demn it with a bitterness and severity much more than 
the real sin which does not happen to interfere with 
our interests or personal tastes. ' ' 



FABER ON JUDGING OTHERS. 1 35 

"This is why an impartial God must condemn us so 
often for the very condemnation we give to others, 
because our judgments do not proceed from the love 
of God but from personal taste. Goodness always 
tends to be graceful, but in this life there are always 
to each man a thousand causes which prevent or delay 
a work of grace in the heart from becoming graceful 
in life. Grace may work instantaneously, but grace- 
fulness in the details of life operates more slowly, at 
least in the majority of cases." 

8. "Nothing is more amazing than the patient, 
gentle charity that God displays to his creatures. 
There is something adorable in the compassion of God 
for mankind which looks like a voluntary blindness at 
their evil. He seems either not to see, or not appre- 
ciate, the utter unworthiness of man ; at least he goes 
on his way as though he did not see it. The Bible is 
full of instances of this, both in his dealings with 
nations and with individuals, where his justice seems 
to move with tortoise pace, constantly pursuing but 
seemingly on purpose to be a long while catching up 
with the one to be punished, as if to give them every 
allowance possible to infinite mercy. Now, the more 
we are with God, and the closer our union is with 
him, and the more deeply we drink of the interior 
sweetness of his life, the more shall we catch some- 
thing of his gentleness and compassion of spirit which 



136 true and false Eire. 

will destroy our proclivity for harsh judgments and 
take away the keeness by which we discover evil in 
others. Even where judgments are legitimate and 
unavoidable, we may lay it down as a rule that the 
severity of our judgments is an infallible index to the 
lowness of our spiritual state. Green sanctity is ever 
swift and sharp and thinks God is too lenient, and 
often acts as if his judgment throne wanted an occu- 
pant." 

"Mature, mellow sanctity is always slow, gentle, 
compassionate, making allowances for others which it 
never feels justified in making for itself. We must 
therefore be on our guard, for the more severe we are 
the lower we are in love, and in proportion we get 
milder to others, are strict with self. ' ' 

"The gospel nowhere tells us that sinners are pun- 
ished to the uttermost of their demerits, but it does 
tell us that the righteous shall be rewarded 'with 
good measure, and shaken together, and running over,' 
so it is in the rewards of goodness, that our mercifnl 
Creator seems bent on doing his uttermost." 



XV. 

TRUE AND FALSE FIRE. 
The true saints of God, who have clear heads, and 
pure, warm hearts, have in all generations had to walk 



TRUE AND FALSE FIRE. 1 37 

between the two extremes of cold formality on the 
one side, and wild, ranting fanaticism on the other. 
Dead formality and the false fire of fanaticism are 
both Satan's counterfeits, and he does not care into 
which extreme a soul plunges, just so he can prevent 
it from having that scriptural type of holiness which 
is "full of faith," and "full of the Holy Spirit," and 
"full of wisdom," and of a "sound mind." There is a 
state of deep, divine fervor described in Scripture as a 
"hot heart," "fervent, or boiling in spirit," and 
having a "tongue of fire." Inasmuch as this state of 
grace is the most fruitful for the glory of God, it is 
the policy of Satan to either counterfeit it, or else to 
inject some of his wildness into it to destroy its effici- 
ency, and break the soul down by a false fire, just as a 
hot box on a railway train will melt the axle and 
cause a wreck. There are some things by which we 
can detect the difference between true and false fire. 

i. True fire has its seat in the heart. David says, 
"my heart was hot within me. It melts the affections, 
and expands the sympathies, and simplifies the desires, 
and all its furnace flames are centered in the love 
nature. False fire runs up into the head and centers 
itself in the imagination, and produces rashness, a 
reckless impetuosity : it evolves impracticable schemes, 
extravagant air castles ; it produces an unbalanced 
view of truth ; it magnifies non-essentials and minifies 



I38 TRUE AND FALSE FIRE. 

the most essential needs ; it puts a typhoid fever into 
the judgment by which it ignores the beautiful fitness 
of things as to time and place, and in the same pro- 
portion that the head becomes overheated the heart 
becomes cool. A fanatic has a hot head and a cold 
heart ; a true saint has a hot heart and a calm, equable 
mind. The same fire that blesses us while kept in the 
stove will ruin us if it gets in the furniture. 

2. The true fire of the Holy Ghost in a pure heart 
will feed and fatten the soul with strength and divine 
nourishment, but false fire irritates and excites the 
faculties without really feeding them. Ripe fruit or 
grain is very nourishing to the body, but when it is 
turned into alcohol it gives no nourishment, but in- 
toxicates, and carried to excess produces delirium 
and death. In like manner the words of Scripture, 
when applied to the soul by the Holy Ghost are just 
like pure bread and ripe fruit, so health and sweet, 
and fattening. But when those sam wor of Scrip- 
ture are applied to the mind by Satan, with his per- 
verted interpretation, it is like corn whiske and peach 
brandy. How few people understand that Satan is 
constantly using the Bible to pervert true holiness and 
a life of pure love, and that as men take God's pure 
grain to make the devil's whiskey, so Satan takes 
God's pure word and, passing it through his distillery, 
makes wild fire. The identical same piece of bread 



TRUE AND FALSE FIRE. 1 39 

which will feed the body, when turned into whiskey 
will destroy it; so the identical words of Scripture 
which will feed the soul with all the graces of the 
Christ life, when perverted by Satan will make the 
soul drunk with fanaticism. 

3. The true fire produces great tenderness of spirit; 
it puts a sweetness and gentleness in the voice, the 
manners, the expressions of the face, and a deep, 
gentle, yearning in the soul for the welfare of every- 
body. But false fire puts a hardness and combative- 
ness in the spirit, and makes one deck himself out in 
war paint. -It puts a severity in the voice, a critical 
cutting look in the eye, a boisterousness and dictator- 
ialness in the manners, a stubborn and unteachable 
self-conceit in the mind. It makes one denunciatory 
and argumentative and tiresome. It always wants to 
be in a fight, and thinks it must stir up the snakes, 
and be always in hot water, and looks upon the meek 
and quiet spirit, or true christian refinement, as a tame 
sort of thing. It prefers to warm itself at the wild, 
dangerous crater of a volcano instead of at the good 
old fire place of a quite home. 

4. The true fire of God strikes deep in the interior 
nature, it produces a profound inward life with God, 
it lights up the vast hidden chambers of the soul, leads 
to a profound mental prayer, reveals fathomless depths 
of humility, weans the mind more and more from out- 



140 TRUE AND FALSE FIRE\ 

ward things, and unites it in an inexpressible way in 
the hidden life of God. False fire on the other hand 
flares, and fumes, and smokes, and crackles, and cor- 
ruscates in the external life. False fire in its very 
nature seeks to make itself seen and felt; it must of 
necessity be notorious. It goes in for great demon- 
strations; it magnifies bodily exercise, which the Bible 
tells us profits but little; it measures its power by the 
loudness of the voice, or the height of its jump, or by 
some attitude, or posture, or gesture, or sound; in fact 
anything that will appeal to the senses. The true fire 
of God will have its demonstration, but it does not em- 
phasize them, nor measure its sanctity by them, nor 
prescribe them to others, nor condemn others for not 
having them. The divine fire seeks above all things 
to be perfectly genuine to the core, perfectly simple 
and unostentatious, and prefers to hide itself like God 
in deep humility than to make a show of itself. 

5. True heavenly fire is always seeking for God 
himself. It is united to the three divine persons of 
the Godhead; it continually magnifies the personality 
of God; it seeks a divine person and communes with 
and enjoys a divine person. The false fire uncon- 
sciously takes the glory from a divine person and gives 
it to "the fire," to "a blessing," or a "state," or a 
"thing," or an "it." God declares himself over and 
over again to be a jealous God, and he will not give 



TRUE AND FALSE FIRE. 141 

his glory to another, or to a thing, or a blessing. 
There is more religious idolatry in the world than 
people have any idea of. We talk about the heathen 
worshiping idols, and then the Romanists worship 
saints and images, and many Protestants worship their 
churchism, but some go into still finer idolatry and 
make an idol of their religious blessings or their ex- 
periences, or their demonstrations, and some make an 
idol of the fire, and put the word fire and the word 
sanctification where they ought to put one of the 
adorable persons of God. We had just as well learn 
once for all that the living God abominates idolatry in 
every form and degree, and he will severely punish the 
idol worshiper, even though his idol may be holiness 
or the baptism of fire. The true illuminated saint lets 
nothing in the universe, not even the gifts of the Holy 
Spirit, get between him and God. This is truth easily 
said, but a thousand times more difficult to learn in 
the very depths of our souls. When people insist on 
having certain phenomena, or seeing certain lights, or 
hearing certain sounds, or having certain thrilling sen- 
sations, it is a proof that they are putting a "thing" 
in the place of a divine person, and this is proof that 
it is a false flame and not the living God himself. 

6. The true fire of God's presence in the soul is 
ever bent on saving souls, on getting new converts, on 
widening the realm of grace, on leading believers into 



I42 TRIED BY THK LORD. 

the fullness of Christ. The false fire seeks after pros- 
elytes; seeks to build itself up by tearing other things 
down; it is not so much bent on saving souls as it is 
perverting those that are already saved. Have we not 
noticed that Mormons, and Spiritualists, and annihila- 
tionists, and fanatics of all sorts and sizes, will hang 
around a meeting of true Christians and seek to prose- 
lyte and subvert the faith of God's people. They are 
not able to save sinners, and so spend their strength 
in perverting God's people. The sifting days are on 
us, and every true soul will be tried by a block of ice 
on one side and a volcanic wild fire on the other. 



XVI. 

TRIED BY THK LORD. 

An old saintly writer has observed there are three 
ways by which a true christian is tried to bring him 
into a state of abiding union with the three persons in 
the Godhead. At first he is tried by his neighbor, 
and then he is more sorely tried by himself, and then 
the climax of trial is when he is tried by the Lord. 
This last form of trial is often referred to by Job, and 
of Joseph it is said that after all his other trials "the 
word of the Lord tried him" in prison. Volumes 
could be written upon each of these three great 



TRIED BY THE EORD. 1 43 

departments of trial. I have only space for itemizing 
some ways in which the L,ord tries his own elect. 

1. The Iyord tries a perfect believer according to 
his peculiar make up and condition in life. Hence the 
instruments of his trying may often be the very oppo- 
site in different persons, and in different periods in 
life. He puts one soul to a test by giving it riches, 
and another by giving it poverty, and sometimes tries 
a believer by giving him both these experiences at 
different times, to see how his soul will behave in the 
opposite extremes. He sometimes give a soul exces- 
sive joy, and to another excessive sorrow, to see how 
faith and obedience will act in each case. He some- 
times gives one apparently more work than he can do, 
and to deprive another of work, in order to test the 
hidden principle of patience and fidelity in each case. 
He sometimes gives an abundance of friends, and 
sometimes makes one stand alone, seemingly friend- 
less, and in both instances is proving the secret life of 
the soul in a way we do not begin to comprehend. 
At one time he may flood the mind with excessive 
light on heavenly things, and then at another time 
allow everything, both in nature and grace, to seem a 
blinding mass of gloom. At one time he may 
allow us to be eminently successful, and then turn the 
scale and make all our life seem a falure. As in na- 
ture there are excessive floods; and then long droughts, 



144 TRIED BY THK LORD. 

so God's dealings in the realm of grace partake of the 
same features of his physical providence. As in mak- 
ing good watches, the mechanism is put in ice, and 
then in fire, until the movement will be correct in 
either severe temperature, so God deals with the 
hearts of those he dearly loves, that by all sorts of 
opposite, and apparently contradictory dealings, he 
may prove the delicate mechanism in the fountains of 
holy character; for while one extreme will put to a 
test certain principles of the soul, it requires just an 
opposite treatment to test other parts of christian 
character. 

2. Another way the Lord tries a saint is by giving 
him great bright visions of the possibilities of life and 
service, and begets within the heart a sweet and 
uncontrolable desire to do a certain service for the 
I^ord, and then binds the soul in utter helplessness, 
and gives it no facilities for accomplishing its high and 
heavenly longings. In reading the lives of Bible 
characters, and the burning prayers expressed in the 
Psalms, and the lives of holy people, this feature of 
experience is largely expressed. A great eagle in a 
cage, with his eye piercing the great spaces of heavenly 
blue, which seems to invite his wings, is a picture of 
this form of trial. 

3. Another form of trying the soul is leading it 
into an unlimited abandonment to God, by which it 



TRIED BY THE LORD. 1 45 

renounces its own liberty, and plans, and hopes, and 
fears, by which it entrusts itself unspeakably to the 
guidance of the Lord, and then after all this the Lord 
seems to entrap such a soul, and take advantage of its 
unlimited consecration by putting it into awful circum- 
stances, and loading it down with burdens that seem 
too heavy to bear, and getting it into a prison house 
of sorrow and trouble, and at the same time rendering 
it absolutely helpless. Many a soul has been amazed 
with a mysterious fear and grief at this form of trial, 
not knowing that such trial is the very thing that 
seals the consecration, and causes it to actually experi- 
ence the very thing it agreed to, and that this position 
of going through of utter abandonment in real know- 
ledge, is what proves the soul's perfect fidelity to God, 
4. Another phase of trying the perfect believer is 
the monotony of spiritual life, which never belongs to 
any of the fresh and early stages, either in justifica- 
tion or sanctification, but is one of the features in a 
life of perfect faith. This monotony of the spiritual 
state is not to be permanent, but it is a phase of test- 
ing the grace of perseverance. There come periods 
to the most perfectly consecrated soul, when it must 
push its way through a sameness of things, and over 
dreary, monotonous plains, where the thoughts, and 
emotions, and prayers, and duties are like a tiresome 
treadmill, day after day, week after week, and month 



I46 TRIKD BY THE LORD. 

after month, in which there come no new visions, no 
fresh gushes of prayer, no bright thoughts of heavenly 
beauty, and everything in religion seems to be dull 
and tiresome. This experience will prove just exactly 
the quality of energy in the soul, and if it can push 
bravely on through these monotonous portions of the 
journey, it will sooner or later come into a place of 
new and manifold riches of divine things. 

5. The best of souls have had another kind of trial 
by being led to do a work for the Lord, a work which 
called forth all the energy and painstaking of devoted 
love, and sometimes a work that required all of one's 
money, or health, or influence, and after all to see 
hardly any fruit of their labor or expenditure. Many 
of the prophets were tried in this way, and the Psalm- 
ist speaks of those "who sowed in tears," and then lay 
down in the field of toil and fell asleep in Jesus, wait- 
ing for the time of the harvest when they shall return 
with Jesus, bringing their golden sheaves into the 
kingdom festival. These are some of the many ways 
in which God makes himself a trial to his loved ones. 
How slow are we to learn of God himself. The apos- 
tle speaks of a believer first being full of love, and 
then abounding in all fruitfulness, and then beyond 
this "increasing in the knowledge of God." But how 
can we know God except by his direct and thorough 
dealings with us. One way of knowing God better is 



Elements of fanaticism. 147 

to die to our previous views of God, for, be it remem- 
bered, that we know nothing of God until we are born 
of the Spirit, and then our views of him are small and 
crude; and even when we are sanctified our knowledge 
of God just begins on a higher scale, and as he leads 
us onward through his school we must be constantly 
dropping our narrowness and misconceptions of him, 
and he tries us with fire that we may learn him in the 
perfect truth of his word. To know God inwardly 
and consciously is the very essence of eternal life, and 
we get our deepest knowledge of God by having him 
try us. 



XVII. 
ELEMENTS OF FANATICISM. 

Many suppose that fanaticism is but the excess of 
good things, as if an excess of faith should destroy 
reason, or an excess of light should produce severity, 
or an excess of love should run into license, but such 
is not the case. It is impossible to have any virtue 
or grace of the Holy Spirit in too great a degree. As 
no amount of increase of gold would turn it into lead, 
so no degree to the increase of any virtue could turn 
it into fanaticism. 

Fanaticism is produced by spurious elements which 



I48 ELEMENTS OE FANATICISM. 

assume the form of grace, like a clown trying to play 
the king. There are several principles which simulate 
some form of grace, but a little examination will prove 
their counterfeit, as Milton describes the touch of 
Ithuriel's spear making the toad to break forth into 
a full fledged Satan. 

1. Expecting effects without the proper causes, is 
one among the first principles of fanaticism. This is 
the counterfeit of real faith. Some evil spirit per- 
suades a christian that he can neglect using the proper 
means, and take an attitude of shiftless idleness, or 
indolent waiting, and see marvelous results accomp- 
lished while ignoring all the legitimate causes to pro- 
duce the effects. One man expects the place of wor- 
ship to be filled with people without advertising it in 
any way, or letting the people know what the meeting 
is and where it is to be. Another expects money to 
flow in, or drop down from heaven, without giving 
the people an opportunity of making a free will offer- 
ing. Another expects christian people to gratuitously 
supply him with all the comforts of life when he is not 
proving himself a christian worker that needeth not to 
be ashamed. Another expects to go in the pulpit and 
preach a luminous, melting sermon without any pre- 
paration of deep reading and thinking and much pri- 
vate prayer. The list could be lengthed indefintely. 
Such people not only fancy that they have faith, but 



ELEMENTS OF FANATICISM. 1 49 

secretly pride themselves on having an extraordinary 
faith beyond all other christians, and imagine that 
they are imitating the apostles and George Muller and 
such characters. The> wind up by going hungry and 
ragged and seeing nothing done, and then get vexed 
because the mountain was not cast into the sea, and 
because the eagle did not drop a large fish at their 
front door, as in the case of Huntington, forgetting 
that they were not working with all their might for 
God like he was. These are just the people that St. 
James wrote his epistle for. True faith always looks 
for the proper causes to produce the effects, both in 
the inner experience and the outer life. 

2. Another element of fanaticism is where people 
wait for some voice or definite impression to tell them 
what to do on points that are distinctly stated in 
Scripture. It is true there are many things in the 
details of life upon which all christians must seek for 
special light and guidance from the Holy Spirit. But 
when a duty is distinctly expressed in Scripture, or 
universally recognized by the unwritten rules of civil 
life, then it is fanaticism to be looking for special 
revelations from God to decide such matters. One 
person will not visit the sick and pray with them 
without some special, tremendous impression upon his 
emotions, when the word of God plainly says that 
pure religion is to visit people in their affliction. 



150 ELEMENTS OE FANATICISM 

Another will not give his tenth to the Lord, and 
never contribute to support the work of God, or help 
the poor, without some voice or special conviction to 
almost force him to unclasp his stingy purse, when the 
Scriptures abound in passages on giving the tenth, 
and giving liberally, and helping the needy. Another 
will not put off his jewelry and gaudy attire until he 
gets a special telegram from the skies, when the word 
of God plainly forbids such things. 

Then there are many things not written in Scripture, 
but are the unwritten laws of civil manners, in social 
conduct, in polite behavior which need to be recog- 
nized without waiting for special impressions from the 
Iyord. 

There are hundreds of comparatively good people at 
this moment lazily waiting for some special revelation 
to do something which Scripture and common sense 
would lead them to go at immediately. One thinks 
he must not read the Scriptures except when he 
has an impression to do so, another thinks he must 
neglect secret prayer until a supernatural voice tells 
him to pray, when the Bible explicitly commands on 
these points. 

In all such instances, some evil spirit has attempted 
to play the part of the Holy Ghost, and gets people to 
ignore their common sense under the delusion of 
extraordinary sanctity, and in every single instance 



ELEMENTS OP FANATICISM. 15I 

the results are disastrous, both as to experience and 
practice. 

The Holy Ghost is above reason, and outside of 
vScripture, but never contradictory to either. 

3. Another principle of fanaticism is the passion 
for leadership, a spiritual itch to be a boss of some- 
thing or of somebody. Because God has given some 
special gift, or extra illumination, to be used in 
humble love for his glory, the evil one sees his oppor- 
tunity, and comes to the soul with soft, sweet flatteries, 
and gets it to believe that it is fore ordained to be the 
founder of some new and startling enterprise that will 
surpass all the tame affairs of humble plodding chris- 
tians. 

Now it is true God does have in every generation 
some of his servants prepared for leadership, but God's 
leaders are the lowly, the loving, the praying, the 
weeping, the cross bearing, the suffering, and tried 
ones, who never attempt to boss their brethren, and to 
cut the sheep with swords, and when they have to 
exercise authority, they do it in love, and they have 
a holy trembling when responsibility is put on them, 
such as Moses and Paul had. But the fanatic has in 
him the principle of braggadocio, and strut, and loud 
talk, and dictatorship, and threatening, that if his 
underlings go to hear anybody else preach, or don't 
give him their money, or don't do as he says, they 



I52 ELEMENTS OE FANATICISM. 

are called hard names, or excommunicated, and even 
the most ignorant soon see through his sanctimonious 
robes of authority, that he is a fraud or a backslider. 
The desire to be a great leader is dreadfully danger- 
ous. The secret itch of the mind to head some great 
mission, some new departure, some startling revolu- 
tion, some original pious fad, is always born of self and 
Satan, and always runs a brief race, makes a display 
of skyrockets, ruins the usefulness of the would-be- 
leader, and hinders and weakens many a poor soul. 

A soul really called to a great mission, and that 
keeps in union with God, will go slow, pray much, 
make little noise over it, and seek to keep self in the 
background. 

4. Another principle that enters into fanaticism 
is that of tremendous exaggerations. 

There is always a consciousness that the facts are 
inadequate for the occasion, and so an effort must be 
made to put on the coloring as bright as possible, and 
so the least little thing in the person's favor, or in 
the line of success, is magnified into great proportions. 

A little congregation of a hundred is reported to be 
several huudred, statistics as to religious meetings are 
run up into fabulous figures, a little financial prosper- 
ity is spoken of with such inflated terms as to make it 
sound like Wall street. 

Fanaticism finds mountains in mole hills, construes 



ELEMENTS OF FANATICISM. 1 53 

some little passing incident to be a great fulfillment of 
Bible prophecy, and imagines that some ordinary 
dream or mental flash light in prayer is the signal for 
something startling and world wide in its import, it 
uses high sounding phrases, and always construes his- 
tory, prophecy, providence, revelation, grace and 
glory, in such a way as to put self conspicuously in 
the center, and instead of a sweet Divine passion to 
give Christ the pre-eminence in all things, it magnifies 
itself to be almost equal to Jesus. I heard a person 
publicly declare that Jesus told her that she stood 
next to himself in the point of suffering, that her trials 
had surpassed everybody's on earth. That is a 
sample of the awful exaggeration of little minds. The 
real saints have always shunned the spirit of exagger- 
ation, for a lie is none the less a lie for being wrapped 
in the pious garb of religious enthusiasm. Have you 
noticed that Jesus uses simple, positive words, without 
excessive adjectives, because he meant just what he 
said. 

5. Another fanatical element is found in a tend- 
ency amounting almost to a predilection to turn away 
from things practical and available to something that 
is fanciful and impracticable. Its eye overlooks the 
plain common sense work right at hand, to some far 
away misty scheme across the sea or in some future 
years. Instead of giving money to carry on the mis- 



154 KlvKMKNTS OF FANATICISM. 

sions and revivals that are already going on, it builds 
air castles of some new and vast enterprise of benevo- 
lence which is to take place in the bright future or 
some far away locality. There is a bias in every mind 
to build great air castles of imaginary enterprises, and 
it takes a great interior crucifixion, as Paul gives us to 
understand, to bring down those lofty imaginations 
into the captivity of Jesus, and set them to work doing 
something practical for God and souls. Money is be- 
ing hoarded for future imaginary benevolence, which 
ungodly relatives will get hold of, and God's cause 
will be defrauded, because the owner has not enough 
wisdom to use it at. once for the salvation of the 
world. It is amazing how few professors of holiness 
there are that use their money for God, and when 
they are dead, the world, or the flesh, or the devil, 
carry off the spoils. This is rank fanaticism for pres- 
ent stinginess to be dreaming of future benevolence. 
The same waste applies to one's mind, or influence, or 
gifts, refusing to use the present opportunity, and 
planning for something which will turn out to be a 
shadow. 

6. Building a theology, or an experience, or a 
practice of conduct, on one single text of Scripture, 
is another evidence of fanaticism. 

There are persons who form a habit of harping on 
one single passage of Scripture, and that perhaps a 



ELEMENTS OF FANATICISM. 1 55 

figurative one, until it seems to overshadow everything 
in the Bible, or they take some precept which could 
only apply literally to the Jews or the Apostles, and 
insist that it must apply literally to themselves, as 
when a preacher says he cannot preach until he raises 
money and takes a trip to Jerusalem, just because the 
Scripture says "beginning at Jerusalem." 

Hence one set magnify the seventh day, until it is 
greater than everything else in the Bible; another 
makes water baptism the only real thing in religion, 
another rights all the ordinances of the Christian 
church, and builds a whole theology on that text 
where Paul says the Jewish ordinances were nailed to 
the cross; another set take the passage "these are they 
which were not defiled with women," and run it into 
irrational conclusions, even teaching that living in the 
marriage relation is a hindrance to true holiness, and 
many other solitary expressions of Scripture are twist- 
ed to contradict the rest of the Bible, and made the 
foundation of a soap bubble system of religion. 

7. The last principle we have space to mention 
here as entering into fanaticism is that of bitter de- 
nunciation, which always proceeds from a supposed 
infallibility of self. 

There never has been a single instance where a per- 
son was of a harsh, denunciatory spirit, that there was 
not something crooked about them, such as that they 



156 ELEMENTS OF FANATICISM. 

were either dishonest, or stingy, or tricky, or quarrel- 
ed in their families, or had secret sin, or used opium, 
or something was in their lives by which an evil spirit 
could get hold of them. If any man have not the 
spirit of Jesus, Scripture affirms that he is none of 
his. 

A crooked hearted professor of religion endeavors 
to show a great degree of holiness by the way he 
pitches into everything and everybody except himself. 
He can denounce outward forms of sin in such a way 
as never to get anyone to forsake those sins. Denun- 
ciation may draw a few followers, but never saved 
souls. 

A flash of lightning is hot, but it never makes flow- 
ers to blossom or corn to grow. Lightning can scathe 
and kill, but it takes sunshine to dress the world in 
sweet verdure. There is no substitute in the universe 
for the genuine, pure, humble love of God. Perhaps 
no Christian has even entirely escaped some touches 
of some of these principles of fanaticism , for the Chris- 
tian that can affirm that he has had perfect immunity 
from these things must have an almost infinite degree 
of self-conceit which is the root of all fanaticism. If 
we discover any of these traces in us, let us humbly 
confess them to God, and seek earnestly to be turned 
into spotless, boundless love, for love is the only cure 
for the multiplied ills of the world. 



Mar- 9*901 ( 4f/) 



MAR 2 1901 

BOOKS 

By GEO. D. WATSON, D. D. 
HOLINESS MANUAL, - - 25 cts. 

Containing twenty-five Bible readings giving proof texts for the 
various stages of grace. Specially helpful for young converts. 

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COALS OF FIRE, - - 50 cts. 

Exposition from the Old Testament on the deep things of God, 
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SEVEN OVERCOMETHS, 25 cts. 

A series of discourses from the book of Revelation. 

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STEPS TO THE THRONE, - 50 cts. 

Explaining the seven stages of the Christian Church and the corres- 
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Treating of the golden graces that make up a saintly character. 

TYPES OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, - 10 cts. 

Explaining the various Scripture emblems and manifold operations 
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